


A Second Strike of Lightning

by RavenMague



Category: Hyde Jekyll Me (2015), 밥 잘 사주는 예쁜 누나 | Something in the Rain (TV), 사랑의 불시착 | Crash Landing on You (TV), 사랑의 불시착 | Crash Landing on You (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BinJin - Freeform, Crossover, F/M, First Love, First Time, Gu Seo-jin - Freeform, Hyun Bin - Freeform, Not Canon Compliant, Psychological Trauma, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Romance, Second Chances, Sexual Content, Son Yejin - Freeform, Yoon Jinah - Freeform, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 55,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27694142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenMague/pseuds/RavenMague
Summary: Who knew that a tumultuous rain was the catalyst that would bring two distant souls back together?
Relationships: Gu Seo Jin/Yoon Jinah
Comments: 8
Kudos: 13





	1. Turbulence

**Author's Note:**

> May contain scenes not suitable for very young audiences.
> 
> Please do not copy to other sites and/or without permission from the author.

The eerie rumbling of the skies reverberated in the empty office. It was around a quarter past ten and everyone was already safe and warm in the comfort of their own houses. Yet, there she was, still working beyond business hours to meet that darn deadline. In her mind, she was reprimanding herself for not checking the weather forecast before (in the words of her utterly lousy, party-thirsty, and gender-prejudiced manager) taking one for the team.

"One more slide, Yoon Jin Ah," she murmured to herself as if it would help to slow down the accelerating pounding in her chest. "Just one more slide."

Fifteen minutes later, she scanned the presentation for a quick proofreading, crossing her fingers and toes that the material she prepared was enough to save her ass from being chewed out in the afternoon team huddle the next day. Thankfully, in spite of cramming, the deck did not appear to be haphazardly done.

Just as she was about to click 'Save', another bout of thunder broke the silence – this time, louder and definitely more imposing – and it made Jin Ah literally jump in her seat. Nonetheless, the daunting sound from the turbulence outside was nothing compared to the sight of a silhouette manifesting out of nowhere.

"You gave me a fright, Goo Seo Jin!" she gasped after cursing under her breath, her fingers frantically clutching the collar of her shirt as if it was a lifeline.

The man she called Goo Seo Jin scowled, his thick eyebrows furrowing in disapproval.

"It's not my fault that you are a scaredy-cat, Yoon Jin Ah," he said flatly while adjusting his eyeglasses. "I've been around for a while now but you simply didn't notice."

Frustrated, Jin Ah squeezed her eyes shut for a brief moment in a nearly-futile attempt to restrain herself from chiding him.

 _A normal person would say 'hello' to make their presence known, mister_ , she thought to herself.

Then again, if the past years taught her anything, it was that nothing about Goo Seo Jin was 'normal'.

Tech genius, self-made man, mysterious debonair – it was such a pity that she had to add 'peculiarly asocial' to the list of descriptions she concocted in her head.

Thunder boomed for the third consecutive time after a blinding streak of lightning. If only she was not conscious of how Seo Jin's astute eyes were focused on her, Jin Ah would have taken refuge under her table in a split-second without shame. Instead, she buried her face in her hands and counted to ten to keep herself steady – a childhood habit that usually seemed to do the trick.

"Yoon Jin Ah," his somber voice faded into her consciousness, hauling her out of her stupor. "What are you doing?"

"Distracting myself," her answer clearly tumbled out of her quivering lips, although the certainty of it was muffled by her palm. "Thunder and lightning are two things I never grew fond of."

"Why?"

"Some nightmare from childhood."

"Care to elaborate?"

Jin Ah shook her head, then swiftly brought her hands down to her sides. She did not have to say 'no' for Seo Jin to halt his subtle interrogation out of respect.

Suddenly, the lights flickered. How a metropolitan city like theirs experienced a power fluctuation for the first time in a long time – not to mention, how Seo Jin managed to cross the distance between them in a heartbeat – she'd never know.

"You're trembling," he whispered as his hands gently rubbed the tops of her arms.

"Am I?" she asked, her voice helplessly yielding to anxiety.

"You most definitely are."

"Sorry, CEO Goo."

Seo Jin gave her a look that caused her to assume that she grew another head or something before noting, "A normal person does not apologize for being frightened, Miss Yoon."

Jin Ah let out a nervous chuckle, then countered, "Let's say, for argument's sake, that I am not –"

Her statement was immediately cut short by another roll of torment from the heavens. Only this time, darkness ensued after a single flash of white light tore through the angry skies.

"Power's out," Seo Jin uttered a few seconds later.

In the dim room, Jin Ah's senses were enkindled to full alertness and it was not at all difficult for her to be sure that it was not her own strength that was holding her firmly on her feet – it was actually Seo Jin.

Carefully, she eased away from his grip and a thousand and one tingles crawled down her spine when she felt his hesitation to let her go.

"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," she feebly responded.

"Calling me 'sir' is unnecessary, Jin Ah," Seo Jin countered, a tinge of humor colored his customary somber tone. "I've vacated the post yesterday."

"I'm okay, Goo Seo Jin," Jin Ah sighed, obviously defeated. "Thank you."

At last, the rain poured from the dark, giant clouds that hovered over the city. Nevertheless, they both were aware that the storm was far from over.

"Do you have any guesses on how long the power outage would last?" Jin Ah inquired a while later as they sat side by side on the floor, their backs comfortably leaning against the wall.

Seo Jin shrugged, then mumbled, "Hopefully way before the skies clear up."

"Hopefully," she concurred, nodding.

The subsequent minutes were spent in tolerable silence: him watching the chaos outside the ceiling-to-floor window several feet away from them and her rocking back and forth as she hummed, secretly grateful for the peaceful interlude that was, of course, transitory.

"You never told me why thunder and lightning scare you," Seo Jin thought aloud shortly after. "Not when we were younger, not when we lived together, and definitely not now when we are treating each other practically as strangers."

"Not all battle scars are meant to be celebrated," Jin Ah stated with a tiniest hint of spite.

"Touché," he conceded seconds later.

"And whose fault was it again that we've been stuck with each other in this office for so long?"

"Well, it's a bummer that I can't find a better programmer than my college sweetheart."

She snorted bitterly, then added, "It's a bummer that I was in dire need of this high-paying job to deal with my father's debts."

Much to Jin Ah's wonder, it was as if a significant burden was lifted from her chest so much so that when lightning struck again, she found herself gravitating towards him as if on reflex.

Old habits die hard, they said.

Fitting snugly to his embrace like a missing puzzle piece, she burrowed her ear to his chest to somehow drown out the deafening bellows from the wrathful heavens.

"I'm here," Seo Jin cooed against her hair. "I'm not going anywhere."

Jin Ah winced as she swallowed the lump in her throat, contemplating if she was brave enough to verbalize the whim of her fragile heart.

"Distract me," she breathed against her better judgment. "Please."

To Seo Jin, those two words spoke volumes and brought back memories of holding her tightly until she fell asleep, of whispering reassurances in the darkest of nights, of pledging promises that he ultimately failed to keep...

He cradled her face and lifted it up, forcing her to meet his gaze that betrayed his implicit regrets, reticent yearning, and a question that did not require to be spelled out. Luckily, he knew her all too well to recognize her approval.

In a heartbeat, he pressed his lips onto hers tentatively, as if he was wooing her. Feather-light brushes turned to tender nibbling, mouths and tongues reacquainting themselves with a familiar, unbridled passion from long ago. In the heat of their frenzy, clumsy hands discarded spectacles, blazers, and shirts to a messy heap on the carpet.

Eventually, her fingers latched on the sides of his neck - that sweet spot under his jaw – seeking for the frantic throbbing of his pulse which was a confirmation that he was right there in the moment with her.

The mayhem outside was subdued by sharp intakes of breath, wet kisses, and carnal whispers of each other's names. He mapped out every curve of her body with his palms, committing the feel of her feverish skin to memory in case she told him later on that this was a careless slip, another stupid mistake she would rather forget.

Oh, how he wanted to strip her off of the many layers she created to protect herself from him, peeling one after another until she no longer had anything to hide. He was craving for her rawness, for her intensity, for her honesty... even if he did not deserve any of it.

As if every vein in her body was burning, Jin Ah whimpered with total abandon, letting out a provocative cry of pleasure and pain from the pits of her soul. When he caressed the parts of her that were miserably aching for his attention, she moaned, she writhed, and after seven long years of maintaining a safe distance, she very much wanted to cave in.

"Seo Jin, don't," she cautioned when she felt his hand slide underneath her skirt and up her thighs, hoping against hope that he was able to fathom her warning in that understated plea. As much as she coveted him, she knew she could not afford to take another step into the void alone.

 _Lightning never strikes the same place twice, right?_ she pondered.

"I know, baby," he groaned with palpable dismay against the exposed curve of her breast as he retreated, then traced his way back to her lips with soft kisses. "I know."

When he finally found the strength to let go of her lips, he framed her face with his fingers and allowed their noses to touch - another gesture that was exclusively theirs.

"I still love you, Jin Ah. I do," Seo Jin admitted as he looked straight into her brown eyes. "Can you please give us another chance?"

What followed was an ambiguous pause while Jin Ah permitted the echoes of rain, thunder, erratic heartbeats, and bittersweet memories from yesteryears to cloud her thoughts.

"Seo Jin, I –"

For the last time that evening, thunder rumbled.


	2. Downpour Rendezvous

If Jin Ah traveled back in time and told the Babylonians that people were going to have access to weather forecast at their fingertips twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week several millennia later, they would have indubitably branded her to be insane – or worse, a minion of the devil. Such significant piece of information was – by all means – handy in 2019, although it was such a shame that even in the current day and age, the odds that the calculated prediction might end up to be inaccurate was at twenty percent.

Perhaps the gods found it amusing to ensure that the aforementioned margin for error manifested itself that evening when she was burdened with the task of working extra hours and when Seo Jin was picking up the rest of his effects from his office.

A stealthy flick of a finger under the tip of her nose pulled Jin Ah from her reverie and threw her back to the dark room that was their temporary refuge.

“What’s with the scowl?” Seo Jin asked, stealing a sideway glance at her as he withdrew his hand.

Jin Ah thanked the heavens that the lights were off or else, he would have seen how his hushed baritone reinvigorated the blush on her face and neck. About half an hour passed since they fixed their disheveled selves and yet, his voice was all it took to set her skin aflame again.

While keeping a pretense of being occupied with her phone, she cleared her throat in the hopes that the gesture could do the same for her mind before replying, “According to today’s weather forecast, there is a sixty percent chance of rain.”

Seo Jin snorted and in spite of the dimness, Jin Ah caught a glimpse of how his smirk etched dimples in each of his cheeks. Almost instantaneously, random recollections of tracing those indentations countless times with her fingers and her lips came rushing back to her. It brought a kind of warmth that ironically made her shiver, causing her to tightly clutch the blazer that he draped over her shoulders right after they buttoned up their shirts.

The rolls of thunder already ceased, but the downpour outside only seemed to gain its momentum. From where they were seated, they quietly observed as torrents of rain relentlessly splashed against the gigantic windows, obscuring their view of the city skyline and rendering everything about that night somewhat surreal.

“We should go home, Seo Jin,” the long overdue words finally tumbled out of Jin Ah’s mouth. “It’s getting late. I’m booking myself a cab.”

“Do you despise me so much that you’d rather have me drive in zero visibility?” his question came with a challenging brow.

She heaved out a sigh, her eyes fluttering to close in resignation, then said, “You know that I don’t mean it that way.”

“I know,” he concurred. “I've decided to sit this one out. You should, too.”

“Why should I?”

“Finding a taxi at the moment is already out of the question.”

“I’ll try my luck, then.”

“Yoon Jin Ah...”

She tilted her head towards his direction and asked, “Why must the rain always bring us together, Goo Seo Jin?”

***

_November 2004_

The day of the College Scholastic Ability Test was nothing like Seo Jin imagined. Upon setting foot at the gate an hour before the exams, he saw that over a hundred senior high school students filled the vicinity – not to mention the lower classmen who were camping outside to cheer for their sunbaes and the parents who were anxiously praying on the sidelines for a favorable outcome. It took him about a full minute to realize that he was witnessing the entire spectacle with his mouth agape and his sweaty palms spread over his churning gut.

When he found his bearings, he lifted the camera that hung from his neck and snapped a photograph.

“I’m so sorry!” a teenaged girl who just crossed his path offered as soon as she heard the click of the shutter. “Did I mess up the picture?”

Seo Jin was supposed to check the image playback and give her the confirmation she was requesting. Instead, he froze on the spot, gawking as his impression of her registered in his mind: a delicate diamond-shaped face, perfectly slender nose, cherry lips, and a pair of bright doe eyes.

“Oh, gosh! I did ruin it, didn’t I?” she pouted when he did not answer.

“It’s alright,” Seo Jin blurted out his poor excuse for a response. He replayed her question in his head and quickly regretted that he did not add ‘don’t worry’ in an attempt to soothe the crease that formed between her brows.

The young lady fidgeted for a bit, then gave an apologetic bow before dashing towards the examination building.

Seo Jin followed her with his gaze until she entered the front doors of the main hall, utterly dumbstruck and doubtful if he could pass – or at the very least, finish – the eight-hour test with half of his brain going haywire. By some miracle, he was able to survive the next grueling hours unscathed and submitted his paper to the proctor at exactly 5:40 p.m.

He slowly walked along the corridor and searched for any signs of her in the crowd, unfortunately to no avail. Regardless, he lingered by the door and waited patiently, knowing for certain that he will not fall to slumber later that evening if he didn’t catch her name. Much to his regret, as the last person left the premises, sheets of rain fell from the skies as if the powers that be were telling him that it was time to go home.

With heavy feet, he headed towards the bus stop without even caring if he missed the 6:15 p.m. trip. It was still pouring heavily and the tiny sparks of light peeking through the enormous clouds were already showing a preview of an imminent storm. Notwithstanding the possibility of being stranded in an unfamiliar city, he continued to sulk over the missed opportunity of meeting that mysterious girl again.

Fate probably took pity on him that afternoon because when he stepped into the shed, he found her standing there by herself. She did not see him, though; she was squeezing her eyes shut. Her hands were firmly clasped underneath her chin and her quivering mouth was muttering something. Was it a prayer? Was it a chant? Was it an ancient ritual to halt a raging typhoon?

“What are you doing?” Seo Jin asked, his voice cracking towards the end. He blamed it on the nerves.

She must have been too immersed in her thoughts that his question startled her. Her eyes immediately flew wide open and an expletive subtly escaped her throat along with a sharp gasp.

“You gave me a fright!” she shrieked. Her dainty fingers were seizing the collars of her damp parka and her cheeks were completely flushed in a sudden fit of pique.

Seo Jin should have said ‘sorry’, yet he discovered for himself that she was a hundred thousand times cuter when upset.

“It’s not my fault that you are a scaredy-cat, miss,” he chuckled while brushing off the drops of water on his own jacket.

“A normal person would say ‘hello’ to make their presence known, mister,” she countered.

Not wanting to genuinely push her buttons, he raised one of his hands – the other was fumbling to hastily fold his umbrella – in total surrender.

Before he could say another word, a flash of white light tore through the gloomy heavens, followed by a roaring clap of thunder. Although he flinched at the sound that came out of nowhere, his surprise was a feeble comparison to the shock that it brought upon the girl. The pretty face he was longing to see all day was twisted in a painful grimace as muted, convulsive sobs persistently erupted from her chest.

Without giving it a second thought, he closed the distance between them and covered her ears with his hands. At that moment, he sincerely wished that they were big and strong enough to protect her from the booming wrath from the sky.

A few heartbeats after the last rumbling, the panic that debilitated her began to subside. Seo Jin watched intently as she gradually came to her senses, dark lashes beating against her almost translucent cream skin. In an effort to comprehend what was happening, she lifted her head and met his bewildered stare. Up close, she noticed that a refined nose rose between his high cheekbones and his brown irises had golden flecks in them. She might have been hallucinating, but for some reason, they glowed like the residual embers of an extinguished bonfire.

“Are you okay?” he demanded without letting go of her, his tone conveying a jumble of concern, urgency, and fear.

When he saw her nod – a little too eagerly, to be honest – he loosened his hold on her, settling to support her by the elbows instead.

“Thank you…” she murmured. The deliberate lack of punctuation at the end was a hint that there was an unspoken inquiry she was quite hesitant to articulate.

At that exact instant, he understood what she intended to ask and he couldn’t be any more grateful that his mind was already on overdrive since that morning when he first saw her.

He took half-a-step back, buying himself a couple of seconds more to capture her likeness in his memory and save it for another rainy day before offering his hand.

“Goo Seo Jin,” he said, a dimpled smile breaking his pleasant face.

The girl chewed on her lip for a while, then allowed herself to return the gesture with a matching adorable wrinkling of her nose.

“Yoon Jin Ah,” she told him her name (To his relief, at last!) as she shook his hand.

Seo Jin rode the same bus as Jin Ah even though its route was slightly out of his way. She might have granted him a fraction of her identity, yet he was sure that dropping her off at her designated stop was the only way for sleep to come to him later that night.

As expected, they were stuck in a gridlock when they reached the central point of the city. He sensed that she was somehow getting impatient, so he rummaged his brain for a way to keep her busy. An idea struck him in no time, a proof that the odds were still bizarrely in his favor.

“Yoon Jin Ah, let me show you something,” he called onto her.

She studied as his deft fingers tore a leaf from the notebook he fished out of his clutch bag and shredded it into a number of narrow strips, mentally counting how many times he folded the sheet and where he folded it.

“A lucky paper star,” Jin Ah whispered in awe after he was done with his demonstration.

“Is that what this is?”

“That’s what I’d like to call it.”

“Lucky paper star it is, then.”

“Please do it again, Goo Seo Jin,” she urged him on, tugging lightly at his sleeves and in turn, eliciting a smug grin from her new acquaintance.

Jin Ah traversed the path going home with a spring on her step; she was practically skipping. She practiced the art of paper folding with Seo Jin who was actually very patient with her until she had to bid him goodbye. Even so, she was still brimming with excitement to try it on her own.

She virtually ran the short distance from the gate of their house to the oak door, briefly stopping by the kitchen to grab an empty cookie jar from the cupboard, then went straight to her room and settled herself on the chair of her study – her bag and coat lay forgotten on the polished wooden floor.

She placed the minuscule origami trinkets that she gathered from her knapsack on her desk and picked the one that he made. She took a deep breath before she began to unravel the strip from the points where it was tucked, over and over until it was spread out on the table top.

Her plan was to write down the good things that happened to her that day on each of the strips, fold them back to shape, and store them in the glass container. She swore to do this every time she found something to be thankful for, diligently saving as many trinkets as she can so that she will never run out of lucky paper stars even if and when the rough patches in life come.

Just as she was about to run her finger along the creases, Seo Jin’s ultimate trick that evening revealed itself to Jin Ah.

***

“What did you scribble on your first lucky paper star?” Seo Jin asked.

They were sitting on the office chairs facing each other, their toes only a yard apart. Jin Ah was lounging on the cushioned seat with her legs crossed while Seo Jin casually reclined in his, fingers laced together and perched on his stomach while his long limbs stretched out before him.

“It’s my secret to tell, Seo Jin,” she shrugged. “But I’m not telling you.”

“Is there a slightest chance that you’d share it with me?”

“Maybe, one day. Maybe, never.”

“Let’s see,” he quipped.

Jin Ah was positive that he was smirking again – thanks to the diffused glow cast by the sea of lights of outside. That – and the memories of that blissful autumn afternoon – was enough to pull the corners of her mouth up into a coy smile.

And although the rainfall mellowed down to a certain extent, it seemed that neither of them wanted to call it a night.

_Not yet_ , Seo Jin thought to himself as he pondered over the endless possibilities the subsequent hours had to offer.

_Not yet_ , Jin Ah imprudently echoed his musing in her head by apparent coincidence.

As if on cue, the sound of water splattering against the windowpane grew louder so much so that words were no longer required to fill the uncomfortable silence that reemerged between them.


	3. The Endless Chase Between the Sun and the Moon

Seven years of working for Seo Jin’s company allowed Jin Ah to learn the ropes all too well. She understood early on that they preferred to play towards their strengths and that they hesitated to venture in new markets, which was partly the reason for their success and stability. In her mind, she anticipated the failures – the bugs, the pitfalls, the Achilles’ heel of the system – and, more often than not, she was correct. She even started a silly game with herself whenever she was bored with the trivial tasks she was assigned with: listen to the proposals from various teams during presentations, steal a glance at Seo Jin, and make a guess if he was going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the project. Her current accuracy standing was around ninety percent.

The company was like Seo Jin; she knew it like the back of her hand.

And she knew that there would always be ready-to-drink coffee in the fridge.

“It’s a good thing that my boss sees to it that the pantry is fully-stocked every week,” Jin Ah mused as she handed Seo Jin a bottle of mocha. “We’re a bunch of pampered employees.”

He snorted, then said, “Oh… Are you, now? Last time I checked, people wanted me out.”

“It’s actually the board who wanted you out” – as she corrected him, he gestured for her to give him her bottle – “not the employees. They may not be extremely fond of you, but they respect you.”

Seo Jin twisted the cap open and returned the beverage to Jin Ah, earning himself a hushed word of thanks.

“Did you really lash out at them during the meeting?” she asked after taking a swig of her salted caramel latte.

To that, he simply shrugged and casually drank his coffee.

They were standing side-by-side in front of the huge windows of the office, alternately watching the seemingly unstoppable shower from the turbulent skies and the stream of blazing red lights from the congested road below. In front of them was a vague image of two people – a tall man and a woman who barely reached his shoulder, especially since Jin Ah already took her heels off. Seo Jin recalled teasing her about their height difference when they were younger and he was grateful that their reflection in the glass pane was somewhat blurry because he could feel himself smiling at the memory of an upset Jin Ah. He’d be dead by sunrise if she caught him.

“I would have thrown a fit, too,” she stated matter-of-factly. “Inconspicuously collecting and storing user data without consent is a bad move; selling such stolen information to prospective clients is a terrible decision.”

He almost spilled his coffee upon hearing her remark.

“It’s classified information, Jin Ah,” he cautioned. “How did you find out about it?”

“I’m a project manager, Seo Jin. I should be fully aware of what my developers are working on,” she pointed out. “Besides, it’s not difficult to put the pieces together.”

Seo Jin shook his head in amusement and murmured, “You really are too smart for your own good.”

“Are they going to push through with it, though?” she investigated further, throwing him a sideway glare. “You have to give me a heads-up because if they are, I might as well edit my resume when the power outage is over.”

“I doubt that they will,” Seo Jin answered. “The legal team would oppose it.”

“Good to hear that,” Jin Ah mumbled, then shyly took a sip of the cold beverage in her hand.

They stared out the window in silence again, taking in the view of cascading raindrops and the changing hues of the panorama that was slightly distorted by the water. The reason behind his departure from the company he built was a touchy subject for Seo Jin, but discussing it with Jin Ah was surprisingly comforting. How talking to her brought him a sense of homecoming after those years of treating each other like strangers, he’d never know.

He relished the moment of having her beside him – so close that if he took his hand from his pocket and stretched his arm out, it would naturally wound itself around her waist. He’d draw her in until her body was cozily nestled against his, his fingers latching on the delectable curves that he rediscovered an hour ago. He wished to bury his nose in her hair so he could take a whiff of her lavender and vanilla scent.

Oh, it would be perfect – if only she would let him.

“No way!” Jin Ah groaned out of the blue, almost making Seo Jin jump.

“What’s the matter?” he asked right away. Her reaction alarmed him, causing him to wonder if she was able to read the thoughts that filled his head a while ago.

She turned her face towards his direction and pouted, “I didn’t save the presentation.”

“Seriously?”

She nodded.

“Were you not able to save the entire presentation?”

“Just the final slides, I think.”

“Oh, Jin Ah,” he sighed. “Manager Hong is going to give you an earful tomorrow.”

Although she could stay for a few more hours and finish it, it would be useless if the power outage would last the entire evening. She scowled as she imagined the ridiculous amount of scolding she’d be getting in the first hour of her shift while she crammed to complete the remaining slides.

“I should probably start praying for Manager Hong to get wasted tonight and call in sick in the morning,” Jin Ah muttered under her breath.

To her surprise, Seo Jin laughed.

It immediately dawned upon her that among many things, his laughter was a sound she sorely missed. Sure, she heard him chuckle on several occasions in the past seven years. Yet, he never laughed – not this way and not exclusively for her ears. It was so infectious that she beamed at him in spite of herself, her half-moon eyes glistening.

“You could have been the one who’s making Manager Hong’s life miserable, you know?” Seo Jin told her as they sat behind her desk.

Jin Ah barely nodded in acknowledgment, her customary response whenever she lost an argument.

“I’m a sucker for missed chances, Seo Jin,” she teased him, curiously tilting her head to the side.

“And bad timings,” he added.

“Maybe that’s why we made a great couple once,” she surmised.

“Once,” he repeated with a tinge of regret in his tone.

Jin Ah perched an elbow on her desk and rested her chin on her palm, then said, “You mentioned to me once that we were like the sun and the moon."

“I did, yes.”

“Why?”

Seo Jin leaned back and crossed his arms on his chest before he answered, “It was because there was a phase in our lives when we always chased each other, but we never got together.”

***

_March 2005_

Jin Ah’s limited experience on romance did not prepare her for the second time she met Seo Jin by chance. She saw him talking to another freshman by the bulletin board and she noticed how much he’d grown over the past months. He was taller, wearing a knitted sweater over a striped shirt and there was a bit of gel on his hair. She caught his eye shortly after and his eyes brightened up as if he saw his gift on Christmas morning. She felt her heart racing when he began to walk towards her direction and every beat echoed like a rhythm from a bass drum in her ears.

It was definitely not a scene from a movie – it was better.

“Fancy seeing you here, Yoon Jin Ah,” Seo Jin bantered, trying to play it cool though his hands were already trembling from excitement. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” she managed to reply through the wide smile on her lips. “And you?”

“Never been better,” he responded a little too fast, almost breathless. “You look pretty, by the way.”

His compliment made her oblivious to the fact that she was barefaced, wearing a tank top underneath an old zip-up hoodie and a pair of unflattering jeans – all because she slept through her alarm that morning. She had no time to grab a light breakfast, choose and match her clothes, or even blow her hair dry.

Besides, she didn’t expect that there was someone to impress that day anyway.

“Out of all the universities in South Korea, you chose to be here,” Jin Ah told Seo Jin.

“It must be the universe conniving to bring us together,” his answer came with his usual smirk and those cute dimples.

She snorted at his cheesy attempt at flirting. Regardless, she still found him adorable.

“What are you taking up?” she asked.

“Computer Science,” he replied.

Jin Ah’s doe eyes widened, then exclaimed, “No way! Are you stalking me?”

Seo Jin laughed – a carefree and hearty one – and said, “If I were, then we would have met sooner than you think.”

Failing to come up with a rebuttal, she just wrinkled her nose and squinted at him. Still, she gracefully accepted his polite offer to walk her to class.

When they ducked a corner to the north wing of the building, Seo Jin cleared his throat conspicuously to catch her attention. Jin Ah lifted a brow at him, wordlessly probing if there was anything he meant to ask her.

“I trust that you have tried doing the lucky paper stars on your own,” he supposed.

She chewed on her lip for a bit before confirming.

“I have.”

“What did you do with them?”

“I wrote good things on the paper before I folded them into stars,” she murmured, careful not to divulge too much information that might ignite a rush of blood to her cheeks. “I kept them in a glass jar.”

“So it’s the new display on your room?” he inquired further.

“Not really,” she hesitated. “Right now, I’m trying to fill it up first so that whenever I feel down, I can draw a star and be reminded that at one point in time, I had something to be thankful for.”

“Like a pick-me-up?”

“Exactly.”

“What motivated you to come up with that idea?”

Jin Ah considered his question for a moment before she responded, “Whenever people find themselves in a season of trials, they tend to forget that it’s only a bad day – not a bad life.”

"Interesting," he pondered. "How many stars have you scribbled on?”

“Around ten? Fifteen? I lost count of them, to be honest.”

“Including the one that I made?”

“Yes.”

Seo Jin’s mind was on overdrive again, running through the different versions of the lingering question in his head and the possible answers she might give him. After all, he was a man and he avoided rejections – from girls, especially – like a plague.

In the end, however, he opted to be upfront about it.

“Why didn't you keep in touch, Jin Ah?” he asked.

They stopped in their tracks at the precise moment he voiced out the uncertainty that bothered him during the past three months. Deep inside, he was preparing himself for the worst case scenario while she, on the other hand, was rummaging her brain for a low-key response. It was strange that to them, the reticent intermission felt like a lifetime; in reality, their waiting game merely lasted for five seconds. 

When Jin Ah finally opened her mouth to speak, the shrill voice of a girl invaded their little bubble.

“Oppa!” the intruder squealed as she snaked her arm around Seo Jin’s. “I’ve been searching for you all over the campus. We’re running late for first period.”

Jin Ah noticed straightaway how he tensed up at her touch and how color drained from his face, although he courteously gave the girl a half-smile as he gently tried to loosen her hold on him.

“We still have fifteen minutes,” Seo Jin reminded the girl, yet his eyes automatically darted back to Jin Ah. “You can go ahead if you want to, Song Joo. I can find my way to class.”

His gesture was not lost on Song Joo and she swiftly gave Jin Ah a once-over, shooting lasers with her sharp, almond eyes.

“If you are able to do that, then she probably can, too,” Song Joo slyly argued. “Am I correct, miss?”

It took all of Jin Ah’s patience to restrain herself from contradicting the unwelcome stranger. She zipped her lips nonetheless and began a series of deep and even breaths to calm herself.

“Of course. My classroom is right at the end of the hallway anyway,” she replied, exerting a significant amount of effort to conceal the disappointment in her voice. “It would be awful if your professor scolds you and your girlfriend on the first day of the semester.”

Jin Ah witnessed as Song Joo’s face lit up at the word ‘girlfriend’. Then again, it was nothing compared to the ultimate blow which was the absence of any form of denial from Seo Jin.

Song Joo impatiently rolled her eyes, then said, “Come on, oppa. If we stay for another minute, we’d have to hurry. You know that I can’t run in these heels, right?”

Frustrated, Seo Jin turned to Jin Ah and held her gaze firmly as if he could convey the truth without speaking. He felt sorry for himself later on that he did not tell her that she was absolutely wrong, that Song Joo was just an overly-protective childhood friend, that he was afraid of correcting her because it might put the other in a tight situation, and that he could afford to be tardy and leave an unpleasant first impression on his teacher in exchange of a few more moments with her.

Most importantly, he chided himself for begrudgingly parting with her that day and saying ‘see you soon’ instead of asking her out for lunch.

***

_December 2006_

Seo Jin’s eyes were flitting back and forth – from the wall clock of the activity center to the small crowd that was already starting to pack up – as he waited for the host to announce that the annual Christmas get-together was over. It was 6:35 p.m. and there was no way that the committee would extend the gathering beyond the hours permitted by the university. The club members were wise enough to commence the real party outside school premises.

Eventually, everyone decided to bid each other ‘goodnight’ and ‘Merry Christmas’, shaking hands and hugging some of their comrades who had to depart early to catch the last trip to their hometowns while the rest headed out to the nearest noraebang. Only a number of students remained to clean up the mess.

“Are you going to stand there all night or are you going to help me with these?” Jin Ah uttered her question with clarity, loud enough for him to hear. Even if her back was turned away from him as she pulled the decorations off the wall, she knew for sure that he was smirking again.

“I’m on my way, ma’am,” Seo Jin answered as he jogged towards the spot where she stood.

Ten minutes past seven, she urged the freshmen to go ahead and proceed to the karaoke place – her clever way of buying themselves a couple of minutes more.

They worked together in silence even though they sneaked a peek at each other whenever they could. They snorted and smiled in secret, hoping that at least one of them would be able to muster some courage to confess.

To Seo Jin, she was the sun; to Jin Ah, he was the moon. They were chasing each other in an endless cycle for two years and they were both getting tired of all the missed chances and bad timings that always seemed to keep them apart.

When Jin Ah dragged a chair against the backdrop of the stage to remove the remaining decors, Seo Jin followed her and held her wrist.

“Let me do that for you,” he volunteered.

“It’s alright,” she politely refused.

He shook his head with stern determination and said, “Unless you are trying to save yourself from singing by getting hospitalized, I strongly recommend that you refrain from climbing on things.”

“Seo Jin…”

He heaved out a long breath before he explained, “Look, Jin Ah. Between the two of us, who is more athletic?”

“You are.”

“More agile?”

“You are.”

“More delicate?”

She raised a challenging brow and quipped, “I am not.”

“For me, you are as delicate as china,” he refuted. “So please… take a step back and stay safe for me, okay?”

Jin Ah hated that he made a valid point. But come to think of it, standing in the sidelines to watch him play the role of her knight in shining armor wasn't an awful idea at all. While the girls in her class swooned every time they saw Seo Jin inadvertently flex those sinewy, trapezius muscles under his white shirt, she simply needed to indulge him with his chivalrous acts once in a while to have a glimpse of it. Feeling smug, she imagined how they must have giggled beside her as he pretended to be her prince charming that evening.

“Are we done here?” he asked as soon as he hopped down to the floor.

“Oh… Uhmmm… I believe so,” she stuttered. “Let me just get my bag –”

All of the lights went off before Jin Ah could even turn on her heel and a pained gasp suddenly escaped from her throat.

“Goo Seo Jin!” she called out in the pitch-black room. “Where are you?”

In an instant, a familiar hand held hers while another landed on the small of her back.

“I’m here,” she heard him say, his voice hushed and soothing.

A second or two went past and she realized that he was pulling her closer at an excruciatingly slow pace, as if he was expecting her to push him away anytime soon. He was unassuming and considerate, always seeking for her approval before he took a step further. Without a doubt, she liked that about him, yet she also wished that he was brave enough to gamble.

In spite of being aware that he already secured her in his embrace, Jin Ah still let out a feeble warning though her quivering lips.

“Don’t let go of me, okay?” she stammered. “Don’t even try to scare me, too.”

Right after she said it, Seo Jin’s chuckle echoed in the room and magically lightened up the mood.

“I won’t,” he promised as soon as the humor subsided.

She measured time and space by the constant beating of his heart beneath her fingertips, the steady rise and fall of his chest, and the caress of his warm breath on her forehead. She wanted to slide her palms down his body and allow her hands to find their way around his torso until she can lock her fingers together behind him. To her dismay, the involuntary shivers hindered her from venturing further.

_One._

_Two._

All at once, she felt his hand cup one side of her face, urging her to look up to him.

_Three._

_Four._

His fingers framed her temple, then smoothly combed through her hair.

_Five._

_Six._

In the darkness, he patiently sought the tip of her nose with his – grazing, nuzzling, teasing.

_Seven._

_Eight._

At last, she could sense that his mouth was only an inch away.

_Nine._

Jin Ah squeezed her eyes shut when the lights abruptly flooded the room, the unexpected luminance briefly blinding her. She would have staggered backwards if Seo Jin wasn’t quick enough to grab her by the elbow.

“Yoon Jin Ah!"

"Goo Seo Jin!"

Much to their chagrin, it didn’t take long for two of their sunbaes to find them.

“There you are!” a female senior exclaimed before wrapping an arm around Jin Ah’s shoulders. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“The guard said that the power outage was due to a malfunctioning switch,” her companion explained. “Fortunately, they fixed it without delay.”

“Sounds good,” Jin Ah acknowledged in a faltering voice, fidgeting. “Shall we go now?”

The sunbaes nodded in agreement and traced their steps back to the doorway. Jin Ah followed and with a subtle glance, prodded Seo Jin to catch up with her.

***

“Can you give me fifteen minutes?” Jin Ah asked Seo Jin as she fired up the computer. “I’ll just get this assignment done and over with.”

He stretched under the white lights of the office, then mumbled, “Fifteen minutes it is.”

They rode the elevator half an hour later and upon reaching the ground floor, Seo Jin tentatively held Jin Ah by the wrist.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” his invitation almost came as a whisper.

She pressed her lips in a tight line, then said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

The elevator doors opened and in their heads, the clock started ticking.

_Ten._

_Nine._

_Eight._

“Aren’t you getting tired of the missed chances and bad timings?” Seo Jin asked, searching her doe eyes for a fleeting glimpse of what exactly was running in her mind at that moment.

_Seven._

_Six._

_Five._

“Are you?” Jin Ah deflected.

_Four._

_Three._

_Two._

The steel panels of the elevator closed and frankly, it no longer mattered if it was her or him who pressed that darn button.


	4. The Old Adage of a Red Sky

To Seo Jin, the muted sound of the door closing was an understated confirmation that he was not dreaming. Everything that happened thus far – the easy banters over coffee, the recollections and discoveries, the soul-searing kiss in the dark – was not a figment of his imagination.

Everything was as real as Jin Ah who was sitting next to him in the confines his sedan. Her cream skin glowing against the dark upholstery, her sleepy eyes vaguely focusing on the pavement ahead, her body comfortably leaning against the plush, leather cushions – it was as if the passenger seat always belonged to her.

To Jin Ah, on the other hand, the entire evening was nothing but a fantasy. It brought her a delightful feeling of being in a trance and gave her an excuse to be reckless and vulnerable in his presence. The moment she climbed in his vehicle – or even earlier, when she did not protest as he led her to the basement parking – she accepted that in the succeeding hours, she was going to make mistakes and memories with him.

“Where are you taking me?” she braved to ask.

“It depends on what you’d like to eat,” he replied.

“It’s almost twelve, Seo Jin,” she reminded him. “Either we stop by a pojangmacha or eat instant ramyun at a convenience store – take your pick.”

Feeling coy and smug at the same time, he tried to hide his smirk from her as he pushed the start button, bringing the car to life with one touch. She saw it anyway and in turn, she threw him a chiding sideway stare.

“Are you going to pull some strings again?” her question did not necessarily require a confirmation.

With his arm resting on the stirring wheel, he shifted towards her direction and said, “Allow me to impress you tonight, Jin Ah.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, sir,” – she rolled the last word in her mouth with fortuitous sensuality – “I’m difficult to please.”

“Oh, I’ve got new tricks up on my sleeves,” he bragged, his devious way of informing her that two could partake in whatever game she had in mind. “Stay with me ‘til morning and you’ll see.”

Her lashes fluttered once, twice and before the teasing escalated to something she was not prepared for yet, she steered them back to safe shores.

“Italian,” Jin Ah stated her preference with fabricated nonchalance as she buckled up in her seat. “I’m craving for Italian cuisine.”

Seo Jin stifled a laugh, shaking his head in plain disbelief at her ingenious way of dodging his innuendo. Deep inside, his male pride was foolishly exhilarated to know that, after all those years, she was still the elusive girl who drove him to his wit’s end.

“Italian it is,” he murmured to himself before smoothly maneuvering the vehicle out of the parking slot.

Jin Ah didn’t expect that Seo Jin was indeed capable of securing a spur-of-the-moment, late night reservation for a candlelit dinner at a glass penthouse. She literally needed a minute to fully absorb what was happening: them sitting across each other under a canopy of stars, naughty toes taking advantage of the nearness, wistful eyes stealing glances over a glass of Chianti Classico. The extravagance was definitely more than what she signed up for.

“You’re going way overboard,” she mock-scolded him as she picked on the platter of cheese at the edge of the table.

He cocked a brow at her and asked, “Am I?”

She nodded, then joked, “The only missing piece is a string quartet playing ‘La Vie En Rose’ at the corner.”

“I could book one,” he told her, fishing out his phone from the pocket of his blazer in the process. “Just give me a –”

Jin Ah swiftly leaned over to seize his hand, clicking her tongue against her palate in disapproval. He merely looked at her, playing innocent even though the quiver of the corners of his mouth betrayed his mischief.

“Everything is already perfect as it is, Seo Jin,” she admitted for the sole purpose of humoring him, hoping that it would put an end to his over-the-top antics. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Seo Jin mumbled with a contented grin plastered on his face.

They resumed finishing their meal in peace, yet it was not lost on her how a few seconds ago, his velvet baritone turned into the bedroom voice that used to keep her awake during the ungodly hours and begged her to sleep in the morning after. The visuals that came with her realization almost caused her to choke on her ravioli and he saw how fast she reached for her goblet to down the wine, leaving him partly concerned and partly amused.

The comfortable silence that eventually fell between them was disrupted by the persistent ringing of her phone, prompting Jin Ah to excuse herself and take the call. Seo Jin watched her walk towards the edge of the roof deck, absentmindedly stubbing her foot on the concrete barrier while listening to whoever was speaking on the other line. She was quiet throughout the conversation, answering questions with a curt ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and closing it out with a lukewarm promise that she’d try.

“Sorry,” she muttered under her breath upon returning to their table.

“Boyfriend?” he probed, pretending to sound as casual as he could.

“I wish,” she chuckled dryly. “Unfortunately, it was my dad.”

“He was probably worried about you,” he surmised, secretly pleased to know that she was still on the market. “Did you tell him that you’re having dinner with me?”

She shook her head and continued eating, putting a wordless dismissal of the topic.

Feeling a little disappointed at her indifference, Seo Jin busied himself with another serving of the Chianti instead. Although he was quick to put on a straight face, Jin Ah caught a glimpse of the fleeting shadow of dejection before he was able to curb it.

“Actually, he didn’t ask about me,” she clarified to somehow appease him. “He just called to remind me about Mom’s death anniversary this weekend.”

Sighing in defeat shortly afterwards, she put her fork down and tinkered with her phone.

“Looks like I’ll be the one taking a day off instead of Manager Hong,” she grumbled as she typed a short text to her boss.

“Did something happen?” he asked with genuine worry.

“Dad told me beforehand that he wanted us to be in the countryside as early as Friday, so I plotted a leave for tomorrow,” she explained in a dismal tone, slightly distracted while composing her message. “Anyhow, I never expected him to push through with the plan. I almost forgot about it, to be honest.”

Seo Jin phrased his comment cautiously in his mind before speaking again, “It seems that your dad and your mother’s family have buried the hatchet at last.”

“They’ve been civil for several years now,” Jin Ah confirmed upon hitting ‘Send’, then placed the device back to its spot on her right side. “But I guess they’ve become more cordial with each other when oe-halmoni was diagnosed with dementia in 2017.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” he offered.

“Perhaps someone up there thought that the old woman was better off without certain memories,” she shrugged, then lazily poked at her pasta and shoved a huge chunk of it in her mouth.

***

_January 2007_

It was one of those days again – those that brought a feeling of waking up on the wrong side of the bed, those that gave an eerie foreboding that something was about to go wrong, those that made one hesitate to leave the bed. If it wasn’t for the scheduled course listing for the spring semester, Jin Ah would have locked herself in her room until the morrow.

The clear sky outside did nothing to uplift her spirits. The second the biting breeze blew past her, she shivered underneath the layers of garments, causing her to slam the door shut right away. She stepped back into the usually empty house only to realize that it was probably colder to be alone than to be out in the streets in the middle of winter.

She went back to her room to replace her scarf with a thicker one, poking around the piles of clothing neatly stacked in her drawer. She found it in no time – along with a silver lining that was confined in a glass container on top of her dresser.

She reached for the half-full jar and opened the lid, then dipped her hand inside to pluck one lucky paper star. Her fingers latched on a tucked end, ready to untangle the strip. Nevertheless, she decided against it at the last minute.

“Whatever happens, please make me see what today’s saving grace is,” she whispered, holding the charm close to her lips.

Jin Ah reckoned it was strange that her day went on without any incident. She got to the university early, finished her errands before lunch, and even joined some of her classmates on an impromptu trip to the arcade. She enjoyed the afternoon outing so much that the dreadful mood that greeted her when she woke up was pushed to oblivion.

Alas, the punchline came via phone call before dinner.

“Iksan?” she exclaimed upon hearing the location from the person on the other end, a bit disoriented. “I’ll try to catch the last trip, sir. Please send me the name of the hospital.”

She arrived at Iksan three hours later and hailed a cab the instant her feet touched the sidewalk. The trip to Wonkwang University Hospital was mercifully short, yet it felt as if it was by far the longest and most grueling journey of her life.

“Kim Mi Yeon,” Jin Ah gasped upon reaching the emergency room. “Where… where is she? I’m her daughter.”

A nurse immediately went to her side and ushered her towards a bed at a far corner.

The subsequent events were a blur: her seeing the bloodied face of her mother, the nurses attaching and detaching an array of tubes on the latter’s body, the doctor pulling her to away from the chaos to explain the current situation. Everyone around her was moving at a rapid pace, but she was not able to hear anything other than the frantic pounding of her chest reverberating in her ear.

“Miss Yoon?”

She darted her eyes back towards the physician standing in front of her and compelled herself to focus.

“Is she going to...?” her question hung in the air.

“We’ll do our best,” the doctor said grimly.

Just as Jin Ah was about to thank him, the beeping from the apparatus on her mother’s bedside stagnated and the last word that registered in her mind before her world turned pitch-black was ‘flatline’.

She came around past midnight and found herself in a deserted hospital corridor, sitting on one of the benches and mourning in solitude. The tears did not come even if she felt like crying because in reality, she had no time for it. There were a lot of things to do – break the news to her father who was on a business trip at a far country, inform her mother’s relatives, arrange the funeral – yet her brain ceased to function altogether. How was she supposed to deal with the aftermath all by herself at the young age of twenty-one?

“Miss Yoon?”

Jin Ah looked up and saw a balding, middle-aged man standing beside her.

“G-good evening,” she stuttered.

“I was the one who called you earlier,” he said in a somber voice. “I’m sorry for your loss, young lady.”

Since it was the first death in her family, Jin Ah was unsure how to respond. Was it proper to say ‘thank you’? Was it appropriate to pretend that everything was alright?

In the end, she did not answer. He understood all the same.

The man hesitated for a couple of seconds as if he was gauging her mental state at the moment, then told her, “My name is Inspector Jung. I’m here to talk about the accident.”

Jin Ah nodded slowly and scooted to the side though the space was more than enough for the two of them.

“Based on the preliminary results of our investigation, it appears that Kim Mi Yeon’s vehicle was over-speeding,” he disclosed.

She turned this piece of information in her head before refuting, “My mother never drove past ninety, inspector.”

“That’s true. Her records are clean,” he agreed. “However, she wasn’t the person behind the wheel today. The driver was identified to be a man named Oh Man Seok.”

For a minute or two, Jin Ah only stared at him with uncomprehending eyes. Seeing her confusion, the man handed her a clear bag that contained a blood-stained driver’s license.

“That’s the guy,” he pointed at the photo. “Let me know if you can recognize him.”

True enough, Oh Man Seok looked regrettably familiar to her.

“He was pronounced dead on arrival,” the inspector added.

Jin Ah forced herself to snap out of her stupor and asked, “Why are you telling me all these things?”

Inspector Jung cleared his throat and fidgeted in his seat before he replied, “It is all part of the investigation, Miss Yoon. We wanted to rule out as many possible motives as we could – including foul play.”

“Do you think that it was a set-up?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you think something’s off.”

“It could be kidnapping or theft,” he told her. “We’re checking the CCTVs in the area...”

The truth in Jin Ah’s subconscious fought to be acknowledged, creeping from the hollow of her gut to her throat. It was like venom, burning everything it touched until it consumed her. The poison was already suffocating her so she had no choice other than spitting it out.

“I recognize him,” she admitted in a whisper, avoiding the inspector’s eyes in shame. “He was my mother’s lover.”

Jin Ah stayed at the hospital for another hour for some paperwork, signing the documents they presented to her without bothering to read the fine print. Only after she was done complying with the formalities did she call her father to tell him about what happened to her mother, leaving that detail about Oh Man Seok undeclared for the time being; only then did her tears begin to fall.

“Is there someone picking you up in the morning, miss?” the nurse asked.

Jin Ah wiped her cheeks dry with the back of her fingers and said, “My dad is out of the country and my mother’s relatives are in Busan. I guess I’ll be traveling back to Seoul in the morning on my own.”

“Well, you can take a nap here at the lobby while waiting for the first trip if you don’t have a place to spend the night in,” the nurse offered.

“Oh, okay,” Jin Ah murmured, then gave the nurse a slight bow in gratitude before ambling towards the waiting area.

She sat at a far corner and observed people as they came and went, hugging her backpack tightly against her chest as she prayed.

 _Please let the morning come sooner_ , she appealed to the powers that be. _Please bring my father home safely._

_And please… please make me see what today’s saving grace is._

With the remaining sliver of hope in her heart, Jin Ah reached inside the small pocket of her backpack and pulled out the lucky paper star she drew the day before. She painstakingly unfurled one fold after another with her deft fingers until the answer to her prayer – written in black ink in a neat penmanship – manifested before her eyes.

Somewhere in Iksan, Seo Jin was sprawled across his bed, snoozing like a baby until his phone beeped beside him. A light sleeper since he was a kid, the vibration of the device caused him to stir and he hastily peered at the message on the screen with little interest.

_Good morning. It’s me, Yoon Jin Ah._

The text was enough to jumpstart his system and without wasting any second, he sat up and dialed her number.

_Hello?_

It was her; it was truly Yoon Jin Ah.

“Good morning, Yoon Jin Ah,” he greeted her with a hoarse voice.

 _Good morning, Goo Seo Jin_ , she breathed out. _I’m sorry I woke you up._

“You didn’t,” he lied with a nervous chuckle.

 _Oh gosh. I did wake you up_ , she groaned. _I’m so sorry._

“It’s okay. I was about to prepare for a morning jog,” he appeased her with a half-truth. “Anyhow, why are you up this early? Did you have a decent sleep?”

 _I wish_ , she chortled humorlessly. _Unfortunately, I’ve been up for almost twenty hours now._

“Why?”

_Something came up._

“Care to elaborate?”

It took her a while to respond.

_I’m currently in a city that I’ve never been to in my entire life._

“Where are you?”

_Iksan._

Relief washed over him upon hearing that they were in the same city.

“What are you doing at Iksan at three in the morning, Yoon Jin Ah?” the curiosity in his tone was turning into uninhibited anxiety by the minute.

 _My mom got involved in an accident last night_ , she sighed. _My dad is on a business trip, so I had to be here to take care of things on my own._

“How is she?” he inquired.

A dead air ensued and it lasted long enough for him to check if she was still on the line.

 _She’s gone, Goo Seo Jin_ , she finally replied.

Her revelation stunned him and his hand automatically flew to his mouth to smother the curse that almost escaped from his lips. This was not the conversation he imagined they would be having on their first phone call.

Seo Jin strove to find the right words to tell Jin Ah only to come up empty and ultimately, he expressed his condolences simply by saying he was sorry.

“Where are you?” he asked a couple of heartbeats later.

 _I’m at Wonkwang University Hospital_ , she answered with a bit of reluctance. _Why?_

“Stay there,” he instructed as his feet swung down from the bed. “I’m coming to get you.”

True to his word, Seo Jin came rushing to the lobby before daybreak and instantly spotted Jin Ah huddled at the corner. She rose to her feet as soon as she saw him approaching.

“Yoon Jin Ah!” he called out as he hurried towards her. “I’m so sorry. I drove as fast as I –”

He forgot everything he meant to say the exact instant her body crashed against his. She was trembling, her shoulders shaking from the tremors that viciously erupted from her chest, and he didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that she was crying. Rendered utterly speechless, he carefully wrapped his arms around her and gently stroked her hair in an attempt to pacify her.

“God, it hurts so much!” she screamed through gritted teeth, her fingers clutching at the lapel of her jacket as if it was constructing her throat.

“I know… I’m sorry,” he whispered as he ran soothing circles on her back. “I’m so sorry.”

“I want to go home,” Jin Ah helplessly pleaded in between sobs. “Please take me home.”

Without a second thought, Seo Jin tightened his embrace and assured her, “Yes, Jin Ah. We’re going home.”

***

Seo Jin watched as Jin Ah took a final swig of her Chianti. Somehow, the way the wine stained her naturally rose-colored lips mesmerized him so much so that he started to wonder how it’d taste like if he sampled it by tenderly pressing his mouth on hers.

“Stop it,” she cautioned him. “You’re doing it again.”

“I’m doing what again?”

“You’re staring at me like a lovesick puppy and a hungry lion at the same time.”

“How is that even possible?”

“You tell me, sir. You’re the one who’s doing it.”

“I was just thinking about something,” he lied, deliberately averting her eyes.

“Care to elaborate?” she threw him his trademark question with a challenging brow.

“You didn’t tell me before why it took three years for you to get my number,” he pondered for real. “It’s only now that I’ve realized the reason behind the long wait.”

She chewed on her lip for a while, then explained, “At that time, I thought I’d leave our love story to chance. I was skeptical at first – especially since we kept on missing each other throughout our freshman and sophomore years – yet we found the perfect timing that always seemed to slip through our fingers somehow.”

It was Seo Jin’s turn to drink the remnants of his liquid courage and before he knew it, he was already reaching for her hand.

“Stay with me ‘til morning,” he implored her, running his thumb smoothly over the soft skin of her palm.

Jin Ah closed her eyes and heaved out a burdened sigh, the conflict painted on her face a needless reminder that she subtly let him down a few hours earlier.

 _Seo Jin, I… I don’t think it’s worth it_ , she said, almost whispering in the darkness after he asked for a second shot at their failed romance.

Nonetheless, the fact remained that she wasn’t shying away from his touch – not when their lips locked in a heated frenzy in the midst of the thunderstorm that evening and not when he crossed the short distance separating them to cradle her hand in his a moment ago.

Taking this as a sign, Seo Jin swallowed whatever sense of worth he had in him and tried his luck for the second time.

“Stay with me and let me learn a couple of more things about us, Jin Ah.”

“What for?”

“For a long overdue closure… a new beginning… I don't know.”

“We’ve closed our chapter eight years ago, Seo Jin. There's nothing left to discover,” Jin Ah mumbled, keeping her voice and words measured. “As far as I'm concerned, we're through.”

“But I have secrets to tell, too.”

“What do you mean?”

Seo Jin took a deep breath and repeated his request, “Just stay with me ‘til morning, Jin Ah. Please... stay with me.”

“Then, what?”

“Then, walk away if you still think that we aren’t worth another shot.”

To Jin Ah, his proposition was an invitation to dance around the edge of a cliff, to skate on thin ice, to tread a tightrope without a harness or a safety blanket to break her fall in case she lost her balance. Naïve as she was, she did that at twenty-one when she permitted herself to love him unconditionally only to shatter into pieces when it was all over.

To her, a secret or two were too trivial for her to spend an evening of promises and uncertainties with him. However, knowing that he was too stubborn to back down, she decided that she might as well indulge him for once.

To Seo Jin, on the other hand, he was putting everything on the line again for the woman who gave up on their relationship so easily, who never even bothered to ask for his side of the story, who left him eight years ago without looking back. He was the one who locked the door behind her, but he was also the one who took her in during a particular storm in her life.

To him, he was risking his heart for another shot at a happy ending although he wasn’t a hundred percent confident that she was on the same page. Then again, taking a gamble was better than living the rest of his life guessing. Knowing was half the battle, after all.

To him, she was worth the bliss and the sorrow, the fear and the tranquility...

To him, Jin Ah was always worth it.


	5. Halcyon Days and Midsummer Nights

Spontaneity was obliterated from Jin Ah’s vocabulary ever since she took on the burden of paying off her father's debts – not that he obliged her to do it. It was an exhausting routine of going to work, waiting for paychecks, and transferring majority of it to loan sharks. She had no time to have fun (aside from the team dinners and outings that she, as a manager, attended for the sake of showing up) and make decisions on a whim, likewise leaving no space in her life for any variable that might complicate the status quo.

That evening, however, Seo Jin was asking for an exception and it was such a shame that she was more than willing to give it to him. So much for logic and propriety – she was on the verge of allowing herself to be reckless for once.

That was how Jin Ah ended up in the passenger seat of his car again instead of getting herself a cab.

“You’re taking me out of the city,” she observed as they hit the freeway.

“Just at the outskirts,” he said as he casually stepped on the gas. “We’ll be there in less than thirty minutes.”

“Where are we headed to?”

“You’ll see.”

They took the nearest exit and in fifteen minutes, they turned onto a private, uphill road. Lush trees bordered both sides of the path, inadvertently causing it to be less illuminated than it should be.

Sensing that the darkness was starting to make her feel uneasy, Seo Jin reached for Jin Ah’s hand.

“We’re almost there,” he appeased her as he traced soothing circles on her skin with his thumb.

True to his word, they ducked a corner leading to the basement parking of a hilltop condominium soon after and before she could even change her mind, he was already ushering her to an empty elevator going to the 17th floor.

The minute the lights of his unit turned on, Jin Ah was welcomed by a panoramic view of the city from an ideal altitude. It was a spacious loft-type apartment with ceiling-to-floor windows on all sides, the colors of the interiors a harmony of ebony and ivory. The furniture and everything else were all edges – a sophisticated home hinting at the absence of a feminine touch.

When they crossed the foyer, she felt Seo Jin’s hand gently squeeze hers, appealing for her attention.

“Would you like to wash up first?” he offered in a hushed voice, as if he was being careful not to petrify her with the supposedly chaste question. “There’s a fresh pack of boxers in my drawer and some shirts you can change into.”

Skeptical on how to properly respond to his suggestion, Jin Ah only looked at him while unconsciously holding her breath. The idea of a cold shower sounded so tempting; trading off her clothes for his was an accident waiting to happen.

As if her thoughts were articulated word per word, Seo Jin easily picked up her hesitation with a certain level of amusement and assured her, “You're with me, Jin Ah. You know I would never cross the line unless you asked me to.”

Jin Ah nodded slowly in agreement without budging from her spot beside him. She was seriously weighing her options and failed to notice that she was biting on her lip so much so that he had to run his thumb on the edge of her mouth to free it from her teeth.

“Care to share what’s going through your mind right now?” he asked.

Knowing that there was no point in lying, she let out a resigned sigh and admitted, “I was wondering if you’ve always brought girls here after dinner dates.”

“Is that what this is – a date?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

Seo Jin scoffed, then clarified, “I don’t do one-night stands, if that was what you were pertaining to. Not here, not anywhere else.”

“And contrary to popular belief, I am not a Casanova,” he added. “I’ve had four relationships by far – including ours – and the bedroom affairs were all confined in my bachelor suite in the city.”

“So the rumors aren’t true?”

“I am a much better gentleman than you give me credit for, Jin Ah.”

Of course, he was and if there was one person in the world who could guarantee that, it was her.

Ashamed at her tactlessness, Jin Ah let her shoulders fall and timidly murmured, “I know. Sorry. I just didn’t want to be another conquest of yours.”

“That’s never going to happen,” he promised her, letting go of her hand to hold the tops of her arms instead. “Between the two of us, I think it’s me who’s going to end up being another conquest when you leave me alone in the bed in the morning.”

His remark earned him a light shove on his chest and a curse muttered under her breath.

He simply chuckled and jokingly ordered, “Shower. Now. Unless you prefer that I carry you upstairs to my bedroom, conserve water –”

“No!” she silenced him by pressing a finger on his lips. “Stay put. I’ll find my way to the bathroom.”

When he saw her reach the mezzanine landing, Seo Jin called out after her and said, “Besides, you are the first person to see this place other than my parents.”

“Really, huh?” Jin Ah snorted. “Why is that so?”

“Well, it only makes sense that I show the realization of a dream to the person I built it with, right?”

***

_April 2008_

Jin Ah scowled when she read the name written on the strip of paper she drew from the fishbowl and the person in question immediately caught it from where he sat at the back of the classroom. Instead of taking offense at her reaction, he was secretly pleased knowing that it was going to be an interesting semester for both of them.

“Yoon Jin Ah?” their professor called her attention again. “Who did you pick?”

Helpless, she begrudgingly uttered his name in front of the class.

“Goo Seo Jin.”

Everyone – including their teacher – suddenly erupted in hoots of teasing and giggles, leaving her with no choice other than to keep her head down to hide the rush of blood that colored her cheeks.

Even though he was smirking the whole time, Seo Jin acted as if it was nothing when Jin Ah returned to her seat two rows ahead of him. Regardless, he made sure to bring up the topic after class.

“You don’t want me to be your partner for our capstone project,” he mumbled behind her while they combed through the aisles of the library’s literature section.

“I don’t,” she confirmed with contrived indifference as she scanned the titles on the shelves.

“Why is that so?”

“We’re setting ourselves up for failure.”

Seo Jin huffed, then argued, “You and I are on top of the class, Jin Ah – we basically have this in the bag. What else could go wrong?”

Out of the blue, Jin Ah stopped in her tracks and turned on her heel to confront him.

“What?” he stuttered, clearly taken aback by the annoyed grimace on her face.

She contemplated for a few seconds whether or not to tell him that it was not a good idea to work with the person you were dating, yet she figured that the discussion was pointless anyway since their names were already duly noted by their professor. The least that she could do was to set some sort of rules and see to it that no one would step out of bounds during business hours. She decided to think about those guidelines later.

“Nothing,” she grumbled.

“Nothing always means something,” he countered.

“Nothing,” she repeated before heading out towards the exit, leaving him clueless between the shelves by himself.

Later that evening, he received her explanation in the form of an e-mail.

_Capstone Project Partnership_   
_Terms and Agreement_   
_1\. Meet-ups for the project should be dedicated to the project._   
_2\. Don’t be late._   
_3.There shall be no other agenda in mind until the goals for the day are completed._   
_4\. Conflicts and disagreements must be dealt with objectively._   
_5\. Constructive criticisms are welcome._   
_6\. Timelines should be strictly observed._   
_7\. Tasks should be distributed equally._   
_8\. Leave your pride at the door._   
_9\. No sleepovers (unless it’s a life and death situation)._   
_10\. No distractions. (You know what I mean.)_

Half an hour later, Jin Ah was getting worried that she somehow upset Seo Jin. While absentmindedly brushing her teeth, she kept on checking her phone if there was an answer from him to no avail.

To be honest, she did not have any doubts that he can maintain everything on a professional level when working and that they would be able to pull off any design come hell or high waters. They were their class’ aces after all.

What troubled her was the possibility of putting their relationship through unnecessary pressure, especially since they just celebrated their one hundredth day of dating a month ago. He was practically the only constant thing in her world at the moment and she could not afford to lose him over some school project.

The message she was waiting for arrived shortly after she crawled into bed.

_I have read and understood the sent terms and agreement, ma’am. Goodnight._

She received another one at the exact second that she pressed ‘Reply’.

_We got this, baby. Don’t worry too much. I love you._

Seo Jin’s tossing and turning ended when he read her response.

_The reason why I am fretting about it is because I love you, too. Goodnight, baby. I’m sorry I’m being bossy._

_You can boss me around anytime, you know?_ he teased.

 _I’m saving this text for future reference. Like when I’m asking you to wash the dishes and you're constantly ignoring me_ , she deflected.

_I’m at your beck and call if you know how to ask._

_Goo Seo Jin._

_What?_

_Sleep. Capstone Project meeting tomorrow at 10._

_Okay. See you tomorrow. I love you, Jin Ah._

_I love you, too._

The next day, Seo Jin was knocking at the gate of Jin Ah’s house by 09:45 a.m. bearing his laptop, a box of fried chicken, and four cans of soda. It took her quite a while to let him in and when they stepped inside the house, a delicious aroma coming from the oven overwhelmed his senses.

“What are you baking?” he asked as he joined her in the kitchen.

“Chocolate cake,” she answered as she placed the mold on top of the cooling rack. “Or something that resembles it.”

He stood behind her, peering at the finished product over her shoulder and commented, “Even without the icing, it looks like a chocolate cake to me.”

“Are you telling me the truth?”

“Of course.”

More than satisfied, Jin Ah turned her head to meet his gaze, wrinkling her nose as usual – that gesture she did whenever she strove to charm him – and eventually allowed her face to break into a proud smile. As always, she effortlessly captivated him with that cute mannerism, urging him to lean down and press a peck on her lips that left her dumbfounded.

“No distractions,” she glowered at him.

He checked his watch and refuted, “We still have seven minutes before we call the meeting to order, so I suppose there was no breach of contract.”

“Seven minutes, you said?”

“Six.”

Putting the limited time on their hands into good use, she turned and caged his cheeks in her hands to shower him with sloppy smooches until he finally held her mouth captive in his. He kissed her tenderly, engaging in a series of light grazes, playful nibbles, and gentle sucking which she reciprocated in earnest.

“Five minutes,” Jin Ah murmured when they parted for air.

Seo Jin snaked an arm around her waist to pull her closer, then asked in a raspy baritone that sent shivers down her spine, “Can I try something?”

Out of breath and out of mind, the only reply she was able to come up with was a shy nod.

He held her curious gaze as he reached behind her, dipping a spoon into the bowl of ganache to smear chocolate on her cheek. She frowned in disapproval, but before she even had the chance to reprimand him for the mess, he wiped the spot clean with his mouth.

While she successfully restrained the smirk that was coyly playing on her lips, her eyes were burning with excitement as he dabbed the spoon on her chin, her nose, her Cupid’s bow.

“Four minutes.”

He swept kisses over the chocolate stains on her skin, his tongue leisurely licking her like a kitten's.

“Three minutes.”

Lastly, he spread a generous amount of icing over the plumpness of her lower lip.

“May I?” his request tumbled out in a sultry whisper.

Jin Ah gulped back the frantic pounding in her chest with much difficulty, her fingers inching upwards and ultimately resting on the spot beneath his jaw where the throbbing of his pulse confirmed that the feverish desire was absolutely mutual.

Her lashes fluttered once, twice, and with a faltering voice, she said, “Yes, baby. Please.”

A triumphant grin graced his boyish face and in a split-second, he kissed her squarely on the mouth again. She recognized at once that it was surprisingly different, devoid of any traces of innocence or caution and in its stead was an eagerness to please. He was setting her aflame with the promiscuous touches of his lips and, for the first time, the titillating intrusion of his tongue. She was not too naïve to understand that he was marking his territory and she was letting him have his way without protest.

“Two minutes.”

It was clumsy and graceless, all fingers and thumbs until they fell into step with each other’s rhythm. He discovered that she was a quick study – meeting every stroke and acquiescing to his demand for more – and it was such a delight to feel her body gravitate towards him with insatiable need as they made the most out of the last two minutes before the meeting officially started.

“I love you, Jin Ah,” Seo Jin breathed against her lips when their time was up. “And happy birthday.”

***

_January 2009_

Seo Jin woke up from his nap and saw that Jin Ah was sleeping uncomfortably on his desk, sitting on the chair with half of her body bent over and spectacles still perched on the bridge of her nose. They were pulling all-nighters for a week – running simulations over and over until every bug in the program was identified and eliminated – and it was a given that fatigue would conquer them sooner or later.

Even if his body was still screaming for more rest, he rose to his feet and ambled towards her.

“Baby, wake up,” he whispered in her ear as he brushed his fingers through her hair.

Jin Ah stirred, mumbling incoherent objections against her arms and falling back to slumber almost instantaneously.

“Yoon Jin Ah,” he repeated, his voice becoming more resolute to rouse her completely. “Come on. I’ll take you to bed.”

She strained to lift her head and look at him, forcing herself to open her eyes. Unfortunately, the best that she could do at that moment was squint at him.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“It’s two fifteen in the morning,” he answered.

“Oh gosh. I didn’t notice that I’ve already dozed off,” she groaned. “I’m so sorry, baby.”

“That’s okay,” he placated her. “I’ll oversee the final testing.”

“But I haven’t fool-proofed the authentication process yet.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll check the codes for you.”

“No, no. It’s your turn to rest,” Jin Ah outright refused, struggling to get her bearings as she adjusted her glasses. “I can do it. Just give me another fifteen –”

Without warning, Seo Jin swooped in – one arm on her back while the other slid under her legs – to carry her in his arms. Carefully, he lowered her down the mattress and adoringly kissed the tip of her nose.

In retaliation, she grabbed a fistful of his shirt and drew him closer until he was hovering over her. The proximity between them proved too much for him and it took all the willpower he had to keep himself propped on his elbows and consciously hold himself back from savoring the warmth, pressure, and friction her delicate body was unintentionally enticing him with.

“Do you think we can finish everything before sunrise?” her question sounded more like a challenge than an inquiry.

“We can,” he confirmed with convincing confidence.

“Good,” she told him, hurriedly removing her spectacles and placing them on top of his bedside table. “Lie down with me, will you?”

He shook his head to politely turn down her offer and said, “Jin Ah, I have to –”

“Seo Jin, listen to me,” she pleaded. “We’re both tired and we’ll be passing out any minute. Let’s just take a nap, alright?”

When it seemed like he was about to reject her proposition again, she added, “Can’t you see that I’m breaking all the rules for you now?”

He dragged out a defeated sigh, then muttered, “Five minutes.”

“Thirty.”

“Ten.”

“Fifteen.”

Not wanting to waste their precious time, he buried his face on the crook of her neck and shifted so he could spoon her, snuggling her petite form perfectly against him.

“Fifteen minutes it is,” Seo Jin breathed into the soft waves of her hair before drifting off to sleep.

They found themselves cuddling half an hour later while waiting for the results of the last simulation, legs tangled up in one another under the sheets and hands mapping out every curve and ridge of their flesh over the remaining layers of their clothing. His mouth was on hers again, kissing her in various ways that brought comfort, wanting, safety, bliss…

In turn, she consented to occasional caresses in places he only dared to visit in his dreams. Still clad in her underwear, she was responding to his touch so well that his mind began to wonder how it would be like if and when they crossed the line. The collective sound of her pleasure was music to his ears and he indulged in it, painstakingly committing all of her sweet, unadulterated whimpers and purrs to memory just in case there would be nights when missing her became too much for him to endure.

“Have you thought about the future, Seo Jin?” Jin Ah asked as she guided his lips to the hollow of her collarbone a couple of minutes later.

She heard him chuckle, puffs of warm breath tickling her already tingling skin.

“Of course,” Seo Jin replied before resuming the light nibbling on the swell of her breast.

“Am I in it?”

“Yes.”

“Am I part of your future?”

Her question caught his full attention, prompting him to half-heartedly lie on his flank, palm to cheek, and stare into her perturbed eyes.

“You are the reason behind my every hope and prayer, Jin Ah,” he confessed quietly after what seemed like a lifetime. “I wish that through our best and worst days together, you would always remember that.”

“I wish that someday, this project that we’re making turns into something great so that we could profit from it… or build a career out of it – who knows?” he elaborated. “That way, I will be able to give you anything that you want and provide you with anything that you need.”

“I wish that someday, I could buy you a house – that hilltop condo unit you were telling me about, the one with lots of windows so you can enjoy the spectacular view of the city anytime,” he continued. “I would do anything to get it for you and turn it into a home that will never make you feel sad, or cold, or lonely again.”

“I wish that someday, you could find genuine happiness,” he told her with uninhibited optimism brimming in his chest. “And I wish you would find it in me – in us.”

Jin Ah was not aware that she was crying until she sensed his fingers trailing the damp path that her tears left on her cheeks.

“Promise me that I won’t lose you, Seo Jin,” she implored him through misty eyes. “Promise me that you’ll stay.”

He bent down to nuzzle the tip of her nose with his – a single touch that was worth a thousand words that did not require to be pronounced in order to be understood – as he swore, “I’ll be here for as long as you’ll have me, Jin Ah.”

***

Seo Jin reclaimed his rightful place beside Jin Ah in front of the tall windows after freshening up, the familiar scent of peppermint emanating from his body subtly announcing his arrival. She was fully aware of his presence, yet she chose to keep her gaze focused on the twinkling lights of the city before them.

“I am glad that your wishes came true, Seo Jin,” she said a little while later. “I am truly happy for you.”

The corners of his mouth turned upwards, forming into a bittersweet smile.

“Thank you for giving me an opportunity to show this place to you,” he sighed. “Frankly speaking, I stopped hoping that I could bring you here a long time ago.”

She let out an awkward snicker and dryly remarked, “But for some reason, I’m here.”

And for some reason – whether by the grace or the tricks of the heavens above them – Jin Ah knew that the longer she stayed by his side that night, the harder it would be for her to bid him goodbye in the morning.


	6. Incandescent Evenings Under a July Sky

In the recent years, Jin Ah developed a habit of sleeping early. Aside from coming home exhausted during most weeknights and dozing off the instant her legs hit the mattress, the reason why she never stayed up beyond twelve was because she was always fragile during that certain interval before dawn. Somehow, sadness persisted to find a way to creep into her thoughts at two in the morning and consequently leave a feeling of emptiness when she woke up.

Yet, there she was, sitting in the living room of Seo Jin’s spectacular home with her brain on overdrive a couple of hours past her bedtime. Even when he was away in the kitchen preparing some refreshments, her skin was still as tingly as it was during dinner and her heart was stupidly beating out of rhythm. Desperate to keep herself together, she focused so much on taming the pounding in her chest that she was caught unaware when he rejoined her on the couch.

“Wine again?” she asked after taking a sip.

Seo Jin nodded before drinking from his goblet, then said, “I have soju and beer in the fridge, but I was under the assumption that you would like this better if all we are going to do until the sun rises tomorrow is talk.”

“A prudent choice,” she murmured, stealing a furtive glance at him. “What’s this called?”

“Pinot Noir,” he replied and the smirk that was playing on his lips prompted Jin Ah to do further research on her phone about that type of wine. It did not take too long for him to see her roll her eyes.

“Goo Seo Jin,” she uttered his name in clear warning.

He chuckled and teased, “What’s wrong?”

She cleared her throat and read, “It says here that Joel Fleischman wrote ten years ago in Vanity Fair that it is ‘the most romantic of wines, with so voluptuous a perfume, so sweet an edge, and so powerful a pinch that, like falling in love, they make the blood run hot and the soul wax embarrassingly poetic’.”

“Oh – and Master Sommelier Madeline Triffon calls it ‘sex in a glass’,” she added.

He shifted towards her direction, leaning on the armrest and wearing a smug expression that he did not bother to restrain.

“Goo Seo Jin.”

“What?”

Instead of saying another word, she threw draggers at him across the short distance between them on the sofa.

“The closest thing to sex that we are getting tonight is this drink, so we might as well have it,” he sternly stated in his defense, though he was obviously averting her accusatory glare by pretending to focus on an imaginary spot on the wall. “Unless…?”

She groaned and told him, “Boy, you are really looking for trouble.”

“Come on, Jin Ah. That was a joke,” he appeased her. “Let’s not argue about it, please.”

“Wine at this time of day is not a good idea, Seo Jin.”

“Why? Because alcohol and 2:00 a.m. musings draw the vulnerability out of anyone?”

“Is that your goal?” she challenged him, leaning in as she stared straight into his eyes. “To weaken my resolve until I get weak in the knees and say ‘yes’?”

His face no longer showed any traces of humor as he answered, “All I want is for you to reconsider.”

“I promised you that I will stay the night.”

“Then, allow me to make the most of it.”

He waited for a rejection that luckily did not come, hence he tentatively wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her towards him. He heard her gasp and he was pretty much convinced that she was holding her breath in anticipation of what she assumed he would do. Foolish as he was, he was exhilarated for the sole reason that – heaven help him – she was not wrong.

“Do it,” she breathed softly. “Kiss me before I change my mind.”

Her last word hardly tumbled out of her mouth because he was already claiming it with his, pressing their lips together with palpable urgency. She went stiff for a second (Her heart literally skipped a beat, for crying out loud.) and shortly after, she was returning the favor much to his surprise.

Although Jin Ah’s head was swimming, it suddenly occurred to her how kissing him relied heavily on muscle memory. It was like riding a bike; she only needed to learn the how-to for the motion to stick to her system, enabling her to do it effortlessly regardless of the frequency of performing the action. When she began to brush her lips against his, she was sure that it would be perfect – just as it was back in the office earlier that evening and even over a decade ago when they were hot-blooded lovers in their twenties.

Unbeknownst to her, she was purring and Seo Jin was very much delighted to hear it. He took it as a sign to go further and boldly parted her mouth with his tongue. She easily acquiesced and welcomed his invasion with a satisfied sigh, then proceeded to meet his strokes with equal fervor up to a point wherein she dictated the tempo of their conquest – faster, gentler, deeper, sweeter, and faster again – while he, for all intents and purposes, played the willing victim.

The moment the wind got knocked out of him, he broke away from her spell against his will. Like him, she was gasping for air and her doe eyes were dark with wanting. So much for one night of plain talking – he was one step away from taking that loaned shirt off her body and throwing it on the floor.

“What?” Jin Ah asked, still dazed and breathless.

“Nothing,” Seo Jin replied.

“Nothing always means something.”

“Do you want to know what I am thinking?”

“Yes, I do.”

He leaned in and kissed her again, tenderly nibbling at the plump folds of her mouth until their heartbeats decelerated to its normal pace, then confessed in an almost-whisper, “I was wondering how Pinot Noir – no, any type of wine for that matter – tastes so much better on your lips than from any fancy glass out there.”

***

_July 2010_

Jin Ah realized that she was fidgeting the exact second she felt Seo Jin’s free hand slip into hers under the table. While he did not look up from the menu he was holding, she was certain that he was aware of her growing anxiety and was subtly trying to placate her.

“Can we have two glasses of Merlot, please?” he politely asked the waiter.

“Of course, sir,” the waiter answered. “Would you care for some starters, too?”

Seo Jin slightly shook his head and said, “Maybe later. We are actually expecting company.”

“I see,” the man acknowledged. “Let me get you your drinks, then. Anyway, if there’s anything else that you need, please don’t hesitate to call me. My name is Ju Meok.”

Once the server took his leave, Jin Ah squeezed Seo Jin’s hand to capture his attention.

“I never thought that my boyfriend is a connoisseur,” she told him quietly.

He snickered a bit and shrugged, “Don’t worry – I’m not. I simply read a few articles about wine yesterday because I aimed to sweep my girlfriend off her feet with occasional sophistication.”

“Color me impressed, sir,” Jin Ah remarked with a shy smile.

Just as another waiter poured their preferred drinks on their goblets, Seo Jin admitted, “Besides, I had to distinguish what kind of wine could help me gather enough courage to face your father tonight.”

As luck would have it, Jin Ah’s dad was a no-show at dinner and Seo Jin sensed her dismay throughout the drive home. She was staring out the window the whole time, wallowing in the unpleasant thoughts spurred by yet another disappointment. And even when they parked outside her house, she still was not saying anything.

“There will always be a next time, baby,” Seo Jin comforted her as he cradled her cheek with his hand. “Don’t worry about it too much.”

Jin Ah pressed her lips together as she fought back the angry tears that threatened to spill out of her eyes.

“Maybe, something came up and he had to attend to it right away,” he implied. “We really would not know until he comes home, right?”

“Please do not make excuses for him, Seo Jin,” she mumbled, her gaze fixed on a pair of blanched knuckles on her lap. “He is not worthy of such kindness.”

“He is your father.”

“He stopped being one a long time ago.”

“Come on, Jin Ah –”

“I’m tired,” the words came out of her mouth harsher than she intended to. “Sorry.”

He did his best to hide the fact that he was taken aback by her dismissal, forcing himself to smile as he repeatedly assured her that everything was okay. She nodded halfheartedly, then drew him closer for a kiss nonetheless.

“I love you, Goo Seo Jin,” she breathed against his lips after they parted. “Thank you for dinner.”

“I love you, Yoon Jin Ah,” he replied. “Goodnight.”

Jin Ah slept lightly that evening while she unconsciously waited for her father’s arrival. The clock struck twelve, then one, then two, and he still was not home. The anticipation left her throat dry, so she got out of bed and headed out to the kitchen for a glass of cold water.

Just as she was about to return to her room, she heard the gate creak, followed by the sound of the front door swinging open seconds later.

“What happened to you?” she demanded as soon as she saw her father cross the foyer.

He looked at her with a perplexed expression which quickly turned into contrite awareness, then answered, “I forgot about it, Jin Ah. There were a lot of things to do, a lot of meetings… You would not understand. Sorry.”

“You could have at least called,” she countered.

“I know. I know. Quit nagging,” he griped dismissively.

When he strode towards the refrigerator to get himself some water, Jin Ah caught a whiff of the reeking stench of liquor from his body, making her wince in disgust. The hell with the lame alibis; he was spewing lies again.

“Now that you are here and wide awake, I might as well tell you the big news,” he muttered almost incoherently as he sat at his place at the table, gesturing for her to do the same.

Jin Ah did not move an inch, though. She opted to stand in front of him with both arms crossed on her torso.

“Alright, listen to me,” her father grunted. “I decided to sell this house.”

“What?” she screeched. “You got rid of the car last week and now, you’re telling me that we are going to let go of our home, too?”

“It’s too spacious for the two of us and it’s basically impractical to maintain it,” he told her. “I met a potential buyer yesterday and it seems like he's seriously considering the purchase. If the transaction goes without a hitch, then we will have to move back to the countryside next month.”

“I cannot do that, Dad,” she refused through gritted teeth. “It’s going to take me three hours every day to commute to work.”

“Then, find a job at the city.”

“And start again?”

“Why not? There are a lot of opportunities –”

“I’m up for a promotion, Dad.”

“A promotion!” he harked back at her with deranged sarcasm. “Is that true? Or are you opposed to leaving the city because of that boyfriend of yours?”

“Seo Jin has nothing to do with this,” she seethed.

Her father scoffed and thew a cussword at her, the scorn in his alcohol-lidded eyes piercing through hers.

“You’re precisely like your good-for-nothing mother after all,” he goaded her on. “Always going crazy for a man.”

It took all of Jin Ah’s rational judgement to keep her mouth tightly shut in spite of the strong urge to upbraid him for being the absentee father that he was, hurling hurtful accusations at him until he threw her out of that forsaken home. Come to think of it, being homeless was nothing compared to uselessly justifying herself to a bigot.

“Go ahead and do whatever you want with this house,” she opted to say in the end before storming out of the dining area. “It’s yours, anyway.”

“It’s settled then,” he called out to her. “Since you do not want to come with me to Yangpyeong, you’re going to have to find a place of your own and live by yourself from now on.”

“Fine!” she yelled back from the landing of the second floor, then stomped her way towards her room and slammed the door shut.

Jin Ah sought refuge in Seo Jin the following day. Good thing it was the weekend and they had the entire day to themselves or else, she would have gone mad. Ironically, she was also left with no choice but to tell him about the previous night’s argument – except that revolting part involving her mother.

“It sucks that I need to search for a place to rent as early as next week,” she sighed as she vaguely trained her eyes on the twilight sky outside the window.

He was lying on the couch as they spoke that afternoon with his head on her lap, watching her instead of the view before them. He was brewing a suggestion, although he was not sure if she was going to be open to the idea. He turned it in his mind over and over, phrasing and rephrasing until his proposal sounded acceptable to him.

“Baby, are you listening?”

“What?”

Jin Ah caged his cheeks in her hands and said, “You’re spacing out.”

“I heard you,” Seo Jin uttered his confirmation at once. “You mentioned that you had to find your own apartment.”

“And?”

“And I will help you with that, of course.”

That was not the last rant she blabbered, yet she did not contradict him anymore since he offered to assist her with the tedious task.

“Are you sure?” she raised a quizzical brow at him. “I know how much you hated driving around the city without setting a specific destination.”

He sat up and leaned on the other end of the sofa, then asked, “Do you want to know what I am thinking?”

She crawled towards him and meld herself in his embrace, ultimately responding with a nod.

“Promise me that you will not freak out and make a bolt for the door,” he murmured against her hair.

“Try me,” she bragged as she burrowed her head on his chest.

Nearly a minute later, he dragged out a long breath and said, “Move in with me.”

Seo Jin instantaneously felt her tense in his arms and he contemplated on taking his words back when she cautiously extracted herself from his hold. He still had her at arm’s length (Thank goodness, she did not sprint out of his unit screaming!) but he unmistakably saw a tinge of disquiet in her eyes.

“I asked you not to freak out, right?” he cringed.

“I’m not freaking out.”

“Then, what’s with that look on your face?”

“What look?”

“Shocked? Appalled? Disgusted?” Seo Jin kept guessing.

Jin Ah shook her head and mumbled, “You took me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Listen to me,” he pleaded, holding her hands with their fingers intertwined. “I can clean up the spare room for you. There is no need for you to pay the rent – in the first place, I will not let you – though you can pledge your share in the utility bills and groceries. Would you be okay with that?”

“Sounds like a plan,” she agreed, nodding slowly.

Sensing the remnant qualms that she strove to hide from him, Seo Jin delicately ran his thumb across the crease that formed between her brows.

“Care to share what troubles you the most?” his question was hushed and measured.

Jin Ah bit her lip and requested, “Promise me that you will not freak out and make a bolt for the door.”

He laughed at her cute imitation of him, that contagious chuckle that diffused her anger in the middle of a heated discussion, and said, “Try me.”

It was one of the few moments in Jin Ah’s life wherein she was left downright tongue-tied. Her vocabulary and comprehension were miserably failing her, therefore she resorted to another language she was confident he would understand.

She nudged the tip of his nose with hers and planted her lips firmly on his, feathering kisses on his mouth and teasing him with a light grazing of her tongue. Their lashes fluttered as they reveled in the pleasing sensations and in no time, he was leading her to straddle him – hands roaming smoothly on her back, palms skimming lasciviously along her curves, fingers latching on the hem of her shirt to lift it up a bit in a mission to acquire better access to the tender flesh of her waist. She hummed in approval as he continued to map her scorching skin under the fabric, prancing along the edge of her undergarments while their hips instinctively undulated for some sort of relief.

Abruptly (and rather begrudgingly), Jin Ah broke the kiss and framed his confounded face with her trembling fingers.

“This,” she panted, eyes wide and mortified in disbelief that his slightest touch can compel her into being the wanton woman her father was baselessly condemning her for. “This is what I’m worried about.”

“Jin Ah, I… I swear, I will never step out of line. We’ll sleep in separate rooms and we’ll bid each other goodnight at your door. I promised you that I’ll never persuade you into doing something we both are not ready for,” he told her through staggered breaths. “Just… just have a little faith in me, please.”

“I trust you, Seo Jin,” she pacified him with a reticent smile playing on her lips. “It’s me I don’t trust.”

“Being aware of how much I crave for you, how much I want to drag you to that void without turning back… it frightens me,” she explained further. “I would be consumed by the fire you are kindling inside me if I am not going to be careful enough.”

“You know how stars die, right?” she asked without requiring an actual answer. “They glow so brilliantly to the point wherein they have used up all the light inside them and in the end, they perish into fading embers.”

Her eyes seared into his as she said, “I don’t want to burn for you without being certain that you are willing to burn with me, too.”

“I will burn for you, Jin Ah. And when the right time comes for us to cross that line, I will burn with you,” he promised with an intensity that bewitched her to kiss him with sinful ardor once more.

After wordlessly waiting for their breathing to stabilize and their heads to somewhat clear up, she thought to herself, “Would it be possible to keep ourselves in check all the time?”

“It would be difficult, but not impossible.”

“And what would your family think?”

“They likely would not mind the set-up.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because they have grown fond of you,” Seo Jin revealed. “Even the grumpy cat of my neighbor adores you.”

Jin Ah wrinkled her nose at his flattery, albeit her half-moon eyes were twinkling with giddiness.

“So… what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About moving in with me?”

She took a deep breath, throwing caution to the wind as she finally said, “I’m sold and I can hardly wait.”

***

_July 2009_

The sound of an approaching car caught the attention of an old woman working on her small garden in her backyard. She immediately rose to her feet from her squatting position, almost hurting her back in the process, and rushed towards the rough driveway.

“Goo Seo Jin, you rascal!” she called out as soon as the vehicle came into view. “What took you so long to visit us here? How dare you not call us or your parents in the past weeks?”

As soon as he turned off the engine, Seo Jin hopped out of the car with a grin that extended from ear to ear. He ran towards his grandmother, trapping her in a bear hug and lifted her off the ground, earning himself a crisp slap on the arm as a consequence.

Flinching a bit, he whispered in the old woman’s ear, “Halmeoni, can you please refrain from hitting me today? I’ve brought my girlfriend over and I would appreciate it if you can help me leave a good impression.”

Grandmother glowered at him, giving him another loud smack on the shoulder for good measure before nodding.

“And please forgive your favorite grandson for being a pain in the neck,” Seo Jin cooed with a wink.

“Pssh. You are fortunate that you are the only grandson.”

Soon after, Jin Ah timidly stepped out of the passenger side, bowing as she greeted the elder, “Hello, halmeoni. Thank you for having me again.”

“Yoon Jin Ah!” Grandmother exclaimed a little too brightly, motioning her to come over. “What a pleasant surprise. How was school?”

“Hmmm… Although it’s somewhat taxing since we are in our senior year, I believe Seo Jin and I are doing well.”

“Poor child. I see that you’ve lost some weight, too.”

“Oh, no… no, halmeoni,” she denied with a nervous giggle. “I’ve been eating a lot of carbs and chips this semester and I kind of gained ten pounds.”

“Well, now that you are back with us, there will be no junk food for a week, miss,” the old woman mock-chided her. “It’s going to be a lot of vegetables, fruits, and homecooked meals for you and this mischief-maker over here.”

Jin Ah rubbed her hand across her belly and groaned, “Now you’re making me hungry, halmeoni. Can’t dinnertime come any sooner, please?”

Later that evening, Jin Ah received a text from Seo Jin just as she finished changing into her pajamas.

 _I’ll wait for you in the car_ , it stated.

“Where exactly are we going?” she asked as they traversed a dark path deeper into the woods.

“You’ll see,” he responded with his charming, boyish smirk.

After a quarter of an hour, they pulled over at a clearing near a cliff. Jin Ah would have been scared if not for the scenic view ahead of them: midnight blue and indigo hues accentuating the mystical glow of the stars scattered across an endless, velvet sky and an impeccable crescent moon casting a diffused, yellowish light over the land beneath it.

“Do you want to curl up with me on the backseat?” his tempting invitation came with an endearing smile that flaunted his dimples.

She traced those cute indentations on his cheeks with her fingertips and replied, “I would love to.”

After Seo Jin reclined the front seats, he led her by the hand to the back of the sedan. He lay down on his side, stretching an arm out to act as her makeshift pillow, then tapped on the empty space in front of him. Jin Ah obediently stretched herself out across the seat, snuggling closer to him so that their bodies fit together like a glove.

“Everything is so beautiful out here,” she mused as she stared at the magnificent panorama beyond the precipice. “I’m definitely going to miss this when we go back to the city.”

“I can find a way for us to do some stargazing once in a while if you like it so much,” he offered.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What are you? A genie?”

Seo Jin snorted and said, “Your boyfriend.”

She took the hand that was resting on her thigh and draped it across her stomach.

“My Goo Seo Jin,” Jin Ah corrected him.

Before they knew it, they were falling into the most comfortable slumber they had in months under a canopy of stars and in the shelter of each other’s arms.

***

They were huddled together on his side of the couch a little while later, his arm wrapped securely around her shoulders while she was hugging her knees. Jin Ah was still keeping her distance, of course, yet she was not pushing him away either. For the time being, Seo Jin thought that was enough.

“Remember when we used to sneak out to gaze at the stars in summer at your grandparents’ farm?” Jin Ah asked without taking her eyes off the surreal sight before them. “I loved doing that with you.”

“Likewise,” Seo Jin murmured against her hair, taking in the notes of vanilla mingling with the minty scent of his shampoo. “It was fun until my grandmother caught us coming home before daybreak covered with mosquito bites and started chasing me with a broom as a punishment for luring you out of bed.”

She laughed upon recalling that specific incident, then said, “She was right, though, and you absolutely merited the beating.”

“I beg to differ,” he countered. “I believe the decision was consensual at that time.”

“Was it?”

“It was.”

Jin Ah heaved out a defeated sigh and remarked, “See how much you corrupted me in my youth?”

“It’s not something to be proud of,” Seo Jin shrugged. “But honestly, I don’t regret perverting you a little.”

“You enjoyed it very much, sir.”

“Oh yes, I did.”

“We watched the stars from our old apartment, too,” she reminded him in an attempt to steer the discussion back to safe shores.

He nodded in agreement, then pondered, “I loved doing that with you, too.”

In the silence that followed, Seo Jin realized how Jin Ah was right on the get-go. With all those chaste cuddles and clandestine caresses, they were like stars that fervently blazed until they ran out of luminosity. That trinket of knowledge caused him to momentarily contemplate on their relationship in retrospect.

On the contrary, he thought, wouldn't the death of a star eventually trigger a birth of another?


	7. Squalls in Spring

_March 2009_

Jin Ah found herself stranded in the middle of nowhere, sitting at the back of a familiar car while a storm raged outside. She was alone and her vision was distorted by the tears that welled in her eyes. With her mind heavily laden by the smell of leather and cigarettes, she sensed claustrophobia creeping in to assault her from all directions when she least predicted it. The air was getting thin for some reason and she reached for the door handle right away to escape – only to find it locked. Even if she banged her fists on the windows and shouted, no one came to her rescue; she was trapped.

“What are you doing here, Jin Ah?” a woman’s voice suddenly emerged somewhere inside the car.

She abruptly tore her focus away from the desolate street and turned to the front seat where her mother – who was not there a while ago – casually sat.

Kim Mi Yeon looked as perfect as Jin Ah remembered her: impeccably clothed in a black jersey wrap dress, her permed locks framing her heart-shaped face, lightly glossed lips, and a set of drowsy, yet shrewd eyes. Her lithe body was leaning on the door of the passenger side, one ankle tucked behind her lean calf, and her arms were crossed on her chest. Based on the way her mouth curved upwards, she was observing her daughter with subtle distaste.

“I should be the one asking you that,” Jin Ah spat, returning her condescending glare with uninhibited lack of respect. “What are you doing here?”

Her mother shrugged and answered, “I am waiting for someone.”

Jin Ah felt her lip curl as she spurned the woman before her, then bitterly uttered, “Your lover.”

“Yes,” Kim Mi Yeon sighed as she stretched her slender limbs out. “Just like you.”

“I’m not like you,” Jin Ah shot back at the woman. “I will never be.”

For a minute, her mother stared at her incredulously and Jin Ah assumed that she had the upper hand. However, to her surprise, the former laughed hysterically all of a sudden, pointing a manicured finger as she sneered.

“Oh, my. Quit playing naïve, Jin Ah,” Kim Mi Yeon mused in between cackles. “An apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

“I’m not –”

“Yes, you are.”

Jin Ah covered her ears with her hands, violently shaking her head to exorcise the guilt in her subconscious as she screamed, “No! No! That’s not true!”

Her mother smirked, the fine lines gracing her timeless beauty with perverse elegance.

“Prude,” Kim Mi Yeon scoffed. “You immensely enjoy it when he touches you.”

“It’s nothing like what you did,” Jin Ah objected, seething.

“It is exactly like it, honey.”

“No.”

“Admit it, Jin Ah – you are burning for your lover in all the wrong ways.”

“Stop it, Mom…” Jin Ah pleaded through convulsive sobs. “I am not going to end up like you. I don’t want to!”

Kim Mi Yeon leaned closer, glaring at her through her lashes as she drawled, “Nasty Jin Ah. Wild Jin Ah. Promiscuous Jin Ah…”

“No!”

“Immoral Jin Ah. Shameless Jin Ah…”

“Stop it, Mom… Please stop…”

“Slutty Jin Ah…”

“Stop!” Jin Ah bellowed in a shrill voice.

Her eyes flew open at once and gradually, reality set in. She was having one of those nightmares again – the ones that left her reeling for air, a phantom weight constricting her chest – and she woke up to the worried face of her constant hovering above her.

“Hey… hey… You’re safe, Jin Ah,” Seo Jin spoke softly as he rubbed her arm, cautious not to startle her. “You’re okay.”

It dawned on her that they were in his living room, taking an afternoon nap after watching TV and a little bit of kissing. It was one of their initial forays to seek further intimacy – first base, as they called it – and they ended up spooning on the sofa. Although she was aware that there was nothing to be remorseful about, it was odd that for the nth time, an imaginary dialogue with her mother caused her to feel bizarrely tainted.

“I’m here,” he was starting to sound nervous and desperate to placate her. “Can you hear me, baby?”

Jin Ah squeezed her eyes shut out of embarrassment and turned away from him to hide. She was still trembling in distress and it was not helping that cold sweat relentlessly trickled from her scalp to her temples, her stubborn heartbeat seemingly refusing to revert to its normal pace.

“Yoon Jin Ah.”

Frantic to cast out the remnant echoes of that bad dream, she shook her head once and swallowed hard before nodding.

“What happened?” Seo Jin asked as he gently cupped her chin to tilt it upwards, obligating her to behold his anxious gaze.

“I… I don’t know,” she stuttered as she lied. “Just another nightmare, I guess.”

“Jin Ah, you were writhing in pain,” he stressed out.

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not.”

Resigned, she rolled to his side and buried her nose into his chest to evade the impending conversation that she was not prepared for.

“Let’s go back to sleep,” she curtly told him as she breathed in that peppermint scent of his, hoping that it was potent enough to calm her down.

“Care to tell me a thing or two about that recurring bad dream?” he inquired, pushing his luck.

Jin Ah sighed, then reached up to kiss him – one of the foolproof ways to put an end to a discussion before it could even begin.

“Sleep, Goo Seo Jin,” she commanded as she cradled the side of his face.

Seo Jin badly wanted to protest and persist in extracting the truth out of her, then inform her that, sooner or later, she would have to let him into those dark chambers of her mind. Nevertheless, judging by the way she looked at him, he knew better than press for more details and coincidentally set off World War Three.

“Alright. Come here,” he mumbled as he drew her in, finally acquiescing to her demand and saving the chat about her demons for later.

“Thank you,” she breathed in relief.

“I love you, Jin Ah.”

“I love you, Seo Jin.”

They held each other in volatile quietude, both feigning to even out their breaths for hours – one of them too careful to invade personal spaces while the other already too restless to fall back to slumber – until it was time for him to drive her home.

***

_April 2011_

The cool breeze of the air conditioning unit triggered goosebumps on every inch of skin Seo Jin’s lips touched – that tender area under her jaw, the crook of her neck, the hollows of her cheeks. The shivers were fleeting nonetheless, and the sensations were immediately replaced by a heat wave surging towards the surface of Jin Ah’s flesh.

It was another night of fooling around; nothing beyond making out as they sat on the floor of the living room with him hugging her from behind. Somehow, she found it uncanny how the stark contrast of the coldness and warmth brought about by their libertine acts was reminiscent of days when she was running a fever as a child.

“Seo Jin…” she groaned, half-chiding and half-pleased as she reached up to weave her fingers through his hair. “I need to get this report pushed through come hell and high water, baby.”

He wrapped his arms tighter around her belly to pull her closer against him, teasing her further by playfully nipping at the shell of her ear.

“Fifteen minutes,” she wagered rather frailly.

“Ten,” he countered.

“Oh, come on,” she griped. “Fifteen minutes and then, I’m all yours.”

“You do know how we kept on missing each other this month, right?”

“I know. I know.”

“So, can you spoil me a bit and shut that thing off?”

She turned her face to the side and frowned – that cute pout of her lips that left him defenseless. In a split-second, she saw a corner of his mouth twitch and she was almost a hundred percent positive that she won the argument.

Begrudgingly, Seo Jin stood up and marched towards the kitchen as he grumbled, “Fifteen minutes it is.”

“A cup of joe, please,” Jin Ah called after him, then directed her attention back to her task.

Notwithstanding the lack of response, he tinkered with the coffee maker while he complained, “I still cannot believe how you are choosing that over me on a weekend.”

She chuckled as she typed, then bantered, “You tell me, kind sir. You were the one who was too busy to have lunch with me on White Day.”

“I already made amends by bribing you with a weekend out of town, right?” he said in an attempt to jog her memory.

“Yes, Manager Goo,” she acknowledged in a sing-song manner. “How I wish Friday can come any sooner.”

“Likewise, baby,” he murmured after pressing a button, bringing the appliance to life. When he was sure that it was all set, he walked towards the counter to retrieve his wallet and keys.

“Where are you going?” Jin Ah asked the moment she saw him step into the foyer.

“I’m going to buy us food,” Seo Jin replied as he squeezed his feet into his sneakers. “Do you fancy some Chinese takeout?”

She enthusiastically nodded and counted her orders with her hand, “Kung Pao Chicken. King Prawn Fried Rice. Cookie Dough Ice Cream.”

“Got it,” he noted with a smirk. “Be a good girl and get that presentation deck done and over with so we can kiss and make up after dinner.”

As soon as the door of the unit closed, Jin Ah worked like a mad woman to complete her tasks and sent it to her boss five minutes later, keeping her fingers and toes crossed that there would be no more revisions or additions. Luckily, her manager sent a message shortly after congratulating her for another job well done and the confirmation prompted her to stretch out on the couch while she waited for Seo Jin to come home.

She did not notice at what point in her rest did she fall asleep and for how long had she been out, but she was certain that he carried her to bed a couple of hours later and tucked her in.

“Goodnight,” Seo Jin whispered after pressing a chaste kiss on her forehead.

“Goodnight,” Jin Ah answered through somnolent eyes. “I’m sorry I dozed off and you had to eat by yourself again.”

“That’s okay,” he assured her as he combed his fingers through her hair. “I finished half of the fried rice, though. Sorry.”

“Now, we’re even.”

“I guess we are.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down to her until the tips of their noses brushed and said, “I am really excited for Friday.”

“Me too,” he agreed. “It’s been a while since our last vacation.”

“Promise me that you would head out of the office the second the clock strikes five.”

“I promise.”

More than contented, her lips turned up to a smug smile before she drew him in for a long and loving kiss under the diffused glow of the bedroom light.

As expected (and much to their dismay), Friday took a long time to come and when it did, Jin Ah was ecstatic. She was in high spirits, as if she woke up on the right side of the bed after a dreary century. Nothing dampened her mood that morning – not the heavy traffic en route to the office, or the fact that she forgot to bring an umbrella and was liberally drenched by a fleeting drizzle, or her laptop persistently showing her the ‘Blue Screen of Death’ for the first two hours of her shift – except for a text Seo Jin sent her before lunch.

_Company dinner slash meeting after work. Will leave as soon as I can. I love you._

Disappointed, Jin Ah dragged out an exhale while typing ‘Okay’ as her short reply.

Later that evening, Seo Jin figured out that the plan was a sham after all. They were not having a meal outside to discuss a project; it was a bachelor’s send-off for one of his colleagues at a bar. He tried to bail out the instant the boys unveiled the banner in the reserved room, yet his manager caught on fast and pulled out the ‘team player’ card on him before he could even rise to his feet.

Apparently, the celebration was not exclusive for their team. The bride and a bunch of their friends were invited too and soon enough, the room was packed with people. Almost everyone was engaged in some sort of chitchat other than Seo Jin who preferred to remain in the sidelines as he quietly drank with a few of the guys.

When his co-workers went out for a smoke, he found himself alone in the corner with a nearly empty bottle of beer. The brief solitude presented him an opportunity to call Jin Ah, but before he could fish his phone out of the inner pocket of his blazer, someone approached their table.

“Mind if I join you, Goo Seo Jin?” a young woman asked.

He looked up and saw a lady in a rose-colored suit standing in front of him.

She seemed to pick up the confusion and explained right away, “We’ve been introduced earlier.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I am terrible with names,” he offered politely. “What’s your name again?”

The girl extended her hand and reintroduced herself as Yoo Hee Jin.

To have a conversation with the lady was not part of Seo Jin’s agenda since he was itching to hurry home after finishing his drink. Nevertheless, he found himself getting another serving of beer, listening to her animated recollections from their early nineties’ childhood. It was peculiar that they discovered something in common (She lived in Iksan for a short period of time and went to the same primary school, although he was a year ahead of her.) and he was liking the chat so much so that he failed to notice that it was already half an hour past ten.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, hoobae,” he said as he bid her goodbye.

Yoo Hee Jin beamed at him and answered, “Same here, sunbae. See you around.”

Just as he was about to get up from where they were seated, she clutched his arm and coquettishly asked, “Aren’t you going to hand me a copy of your calling card?”

Even though Seo Jin was not the assuming kind of guy, he was also not the type of man who would send a woman a wrong message regardless if it was accidental or on purpose.

“You can ask the bride for our office details if ever you needed our services,” was the best response he came up with.

“Ahhh…” she nodded in understanding. “Girlfriend will not like it, I suppose?”

Seo Jin wanted to tell her that his girlfriend was not the one to get jealous over a message or a phone call, that she would most likely shrug it off as small talk with some acquaintance from work. Still, be that as it may, he did not say it. Instead, he half-smiled after giving her a tiny bow.

“Where have you been?” he heard Jin Ah ask the second he crossed the living room. It turned out that she stayed up late to wait for him, pretending to immerse herself in a novel to pass the time.

“Company dinner,” he blurted out the half-truth a bit hastily.

“With the team?”

“Yes.”

She looked up from the book on her hands to probe further, “And some girls?”

Ensnared in his own alibi, Seo Jin let his shoulders fall as he admitted, “I had no idea that it was a stag party, Jin Ah. Believe me, I tried to excuse myself –”

“But you were caught in some tête-à-tête with a woman,” her assumptions rolled in her tongue with a copious amount of venom. “Is that why you found it so difficult to leave the bar?”

“What?”

“I saw the pictures on my newsfeed, Seo Jin.”

Frustration was getting the better of him and he had to run a palm down his face to erase the emotions that were blatantly manifesting beyond his control.

“Look, we were just talking,” he clarified. “She happened to go to the same school I attended when I was younger and we were simply exchanging stories about the years we spent there. That’s it – there’s nothing more to it, Jin Ah.”

“So are you telling me that you were just catching up with some random stranger from your hometown for several hours?

“Oh, come on…”

“What?” she confronted him, the tone of her voice flat and taciturn. “Did you even check the time?”

“Oh, god...” he grumbled. “Let’s not argue about a girl, please.”

Jin Ah closed the hardcover shut and muttered, “Can’t you see that I am not upset over a girl? I am upset because you hid that darn night-out from me. I am upset because we had the weekend planned out and now, we have to delay everything.”

“We don’t have to delay everything,” he opposed. “We can depart at dawn – no, we can even depart in the next hour, if that’s what you want.”

“I didn’t” – she closed her eyes for a moment before she placed the book aside and stood up – “You know what? You’re right. Let’s… let’s not fight about this.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Seo Jin cleared his throat before asking, “What time are we leaving tomorrow, then?”

“I don’t know,” Jin Ah shrugged, then started to stomp her way to her room. “Goodnight, Seo Jin.”

“Jin Ah…” he pleaded, treading on her heels until she slammed the door on his face.

She tossed and turned throughout the evening, realizing later on that it was the first instance that they ended their day without making up. While she was still furious that he deliberately kept something from her, she should have been smart enough to know that things blew out of proportion because she allowed her emotions to speak on behalf of her frequently functioning logic.

In the end, Jin Ah decided to make herself a warm glass of milk – her poor excuse to saunter into the living room and take a side trip to his door to check if he was already snoozing on his bed. Warily, she stepped out and ambled on her bare feet towards the kitchen.

She validated for herself that he was indeed in slumber – a fitful and an uncomfortable one – on the floor by the couch, hugging his knees with his head perched on his arms. She had no idea why he had to camp out of his bedroom, yet she moved to kneel beside him on the carpet.

“Goo Seo Jin,” she murmured as she gave him a light shake on the shoulder.

“Hmm?”

“Come on, baby. Your back is going to hurt in the morning because you have been curled up on this spot for hours.”

Seo Jin lifted his face and squinted at her, woozily mumbling her name in a gibberish manner.

“Yes, it’s me,” Jin Ah sighed. “Let's go. I'll take you to bed.”

He rubbed his eyes and leaned on the sofa behind him, then said, “Do you forgive me now?”

“Seo Jin…”

“I am so sorry, baby,” his apology came with a smoldering gaze that could weaken her knees in a heartbeat. “Believe me, that meant nothing.”

“I know, I know… and I am sorry for lashing out at you like that,” she confessed shyly. “You let me down, Seo Jin. More than the change of plans, I was offended that you attempted to cover it up instead of coming clean about it.”

“Out of all the people in the world, you should know how I feel about honesty and trust,” she added.

“I’m sorry, Jin Ah. I just didn’t want to create a fuss out of it.”

“The mere fact that you thought of hiding it from me is a proof that somewhere, at the back of your mind, you were already aware that it was something I would fuss about.”

“I swear, I was not attracted to her at all.”

“Then, you should not have been guilty about it,” she concluded with a shadow of sadness in her eyes, mildly grazing his cheekbone with the pad of her thumb.

“Do you still believe in me?” he asked feebly while staring at her, searching her delicate face for answers and looking out for any hint of doubt.

She took a deep breath and flashed a bittersweet smile before she replied, “Of course. In this life, there is no one else I would rather put all of my faith in but you, Goo Seo Jin.”

A silent word of gratitude was traded between them and without wasting any second more, he tugged at her waist to crush her body against him, swooping in to press his lips on hers. He sensed her misgivings almost instantly, so he briefly pulled an inch away from her to whisper that he loved her, that he missed her, that he was sorry between intermittent intervals. She responded to him eventually, humming her approval and parting her mouth to welcome him home.

“Come to bed with me,” Seo Jin requested as he feathered kisses down the invisible trail from her lips to the hollow of her throat. “Just lay down with me tonight.”

Jin Ah whimpered when she felt his palm ghost over the thin fabric of her oversized shirt that concealed the taut peak of her breast.

“Are you asking me to sleep with you?” her question escaped her mouth in a gasp.

“Literally or figuratively – I don’t care,” he grunted in her ear. “I just need you beside me.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding weakly on his shoulders.

Seo Jin always fantasized having Jin Ah on his bed, most especially during those late evenings when goodnight kisses seemed inadequate to quench his desires. Countless times, he pictured her revealing to him the parts of her he had not seen yet – let alone touch. In those sinful visions, she yielded to him; in those sinful visions, she permitted themselves to make love.

Still, Jin Ah laying down by his side to sleep in the privacy of his bedroom was truly more than he could ask for. The sheets were a tad warmer, the mattress was absolutely softer, and it was as if rest was luring him to the land of Nod faster than ever. True to his word, he did not intend to do anything (He was holding his breath for some kind of miracle, at the very least.) other than to enfold her in his arms until daybreak.

“What were you doing back there in the living room, by the way?” she inquired a couple of minutes later while listening to the erratic beating of his heart. “Were you working overtime again?”

“I was not. Why?”

“The laptop was on the couch.”

“Oh…” the pieces swiftly clicked. “It was an effort to wear myself out by toying with our project from college.”

Jin Ah pushed at his chest a little to fully look at him, perplexed.

“Well, I had this crazy idea,” Seo Jin began to elucidate. “We could try to update it and search for potential clients.”

“Like merchants? Stores?”

“Yes.”

“Online shopping sites are already existing in the market, though.”

He twirled a lock of her hair in his finger and said, “I was actually contemplating how we could build a mobile application that can be linked to the client’s site.”

At that instant, curiosity brimmed in Jin Ah’s brown eyes.

“And? What will that application do?”

“Users can order, purchase, pay…”

“So we’re linking it to bank accounts.”

“Yes.”

“Have you thought about security? Authentication?”

He could practically hear the gears in her mind grinding and he was utterly spellbound by the sound of it.

“Easy, baby. Let’s park your questions until we return from vacation,” he chuckled. “In the meantime –”

“Goo Seo Jin,” she pronounced his name with taunting clarity. “Do you really believe that I can drift off after you told me all of those things?”

Seo Jin was certain that she was not joking, so he went along with her inquisition and replied, “Yes, I have drafted the protocols for that.”

“Wow,” Jin Ah mouthed. “You are a genius.”

With a haughty smirk plastered on his dimpled face, he pressed their hips together in dangerous proximity and begged, “Please say that my intelligence is somehow turning you on.”

Jin Ah bit her lip as she reveled in the delicious friction, then challenged him, “I dare you to find out.”

Despite having a top-notch brain, her statement left Seo Jin bewildered – eyes wide open and mouth agape. He blinked in rapid succession as if he was proving to himself over and over that he was not dreaming.

“Baby, are you alright?” she asked when he remained stunned, partly worried and partly amused.

“I… I am, yeah,” he stammered. “What was that again?”

Jin Ah did not have the guts to repeat what she told him, but she compensated her bashfulness with peals of her musical giggle. He snickered in spite of himself and for a while, only their laughter reverberated in the confines of his room.

When all humor died, Seo Jin locked his eyes with Jin Ah’s, waiting for her to retract her mandate and wishing that she would not. Luckily, she did not, yet her subsequent action left him even more confounded than he already was.

She sought to tangle his hand with hers, lacing their fingers together before bringing it up to her chest. She guided him to mold his palm on the swell of her breast, demonstrating how firm she preferred to be fondled. When it began to feel good, she abandoned him to proceed while she grabbed onto his shoulder for support.

The cloth that was covering her body did nothing to decrease the intensity of his kneading and before she knew it, her nipples were pebbling. A subdued moan escaped her throat when he captured one in his mouth, swirling his tongue over the thin garment and dampening it.

“Can I take this off?” he demanded as his fingers travelled to the hem of her shirt. “I want to see you.”

Lightheaded with lust and yearning, Jin Ah ignored all the warning signs she imposed for herself and nodded.

Seo Jin quickly sat up and helped her pull the makeshift sleepwear off her body. The sight of her half-naked beneath him was exquisite, nothing like the concocted version of her who usually accompanied him in his loneliness: her skin all peaches and cream, delectable curves in the right places, dark brown tresses obscuring the tips of her bosoms that were aching to be ravished. He had to feel her – he just had to – or else, his escalating arousal would be the death of him.

He picked up where he left off, bracing himself on all fours as he latched his lips back to her supple flesh – nibbling, teasing, biting. She was a glorious mess beneath him, her fingers seizing a fistful of his hair while she buried her face to the pillow. He heard her breath hitch and in one flick of his tongue, she mewed in the most carnal way possible.

“Can I touch you?” he asked a few seconds later, dragging his lips back to her mouth.

“Wait, what?” she panted in between kisses. “Oh, good heavens – aren’t we touching now?”

Seo Jin snorted and he was nothing short of amazed at how she was still able to throw a witty remark even when she was at the brink of her pleasure.

“Yes, Jin Ah. We are touching,” he confirmed.

“Then what else were you asking for?” she huffed, scowling at him.

“I was requesting if I could touch you” – his hand glided south and settled on that forbidden area between her thighs – “here.”

Jin Ah deliberated whether or not to take another step, yet she was pure feelings and zero rationality at that time and the battle was over the moment her hips rolled instinctively against his palm.

“May I?” his raspy baritone was charged with renewed concupiscent hunger.

Uttering a cussword under her breath, she caged his face in her hands to claim his mouth, her tongue and her loins seductively stroking him in seamless unison.

“Please,” she breathed on his lips.

It was his turn to curse, then he slipped his fingers inside the flimsy lace and caressed that part of her that she herself was not able to explore yet. The contact elicited a gratified sigh from each of them and her eyelids fluttered to close.

“Look at me, baby,” he instructed and without delay, she forced herself to meet his piercing gaze.

A tell-tale pressure was building somewhere in the darkest pits of her soul, setting her veins aflame while coiling her muscles from the waist down. Her entire body was capitulating to him and was coveting for more.

“Oh…” she smothered another moan by sinking her teeth into her knuckles. “Seo Jin…”

Every sensation was foreign to Jin Ah – pain, heat, anticipation, pleasure…

_Nasty Jin Ah._

The voice of her mother faded into her consciousness, freezing her on the spot.

“Yoon Jin Ah…” Seo Jin called onto her, but he sounded very distant.

_Wild Jin Ah._

“Stop,” Jin Ah cried in shame and satisfaction. “Please stop.”

_Promiscuous Jin Ah._

“Jin Ah, it’s me,” his troubled face slowly came into focus. “It’s okay.”

_Immoral Jin Ah._

“I’m here.”

_Shameless Jin Ah._

“I love you.”

_Slutty Jin Ah._

“Let go, baby.”

She did and for the first time, Jin Ah fell apart, tears cascading down her cheeks as the waves of her newfound bliss viciously unraveled everything without any reservations to the only person in her universe she completely had faith in.


	8. Whirlwind Whiplash

Standing by the doorway, Seo Jin noticed at once that there was something different in his study. In reality, nothing changed from the last time he used it even after the ahjumma from the agency tidied up the entire unit last week since she was already aware how particular he was with his organized mess: books piled on the right side of his desk while a stack of folders occupied the other, the laptop resting dead center, the flat screen monitor angled at a four o’clock position, and his leather executive chair facing forty-five degrees northeast instead of being neatly pushed back in. As always, the dark interiors were camouflaging with the midnight sky behind it and yet, the colors were also in deep contrast with the city lights sparkling from a distance.

The small office was his refuge every weekend, a place where he could be left alone in his thoughts while still immersing himself with work. However, somehow it felt more like home than usual because in the middle of it sat Jin Ah who seemed to be too busy checking the old photos of their past vacations in his computer to even notice him ogling across the room – or so he thought.

“Come here and pick some pictures for me, will you?” she coolly beckoned without lifting her eyes off the screen. “For some reason, everything looks the same to me and I might end up transferring everything to my drive.”

Without needing to be told twice, he sauntered towards where she was and stood behind her.

“That one,” Seo Jin commented when they passed by a candid shot of her sitting on a swing.

“This?” Jin Ah verified when she clicked the previous image. “My cheeks are all puffed up, Mr. Photographer.”

He slightly bent over, reaching forward to place his hand on top of hers as he took control of the mouse.

“You sought for my expert opinion, so why are you objecting now?” he murmured, his warm breath tickling her ear as he sent the files himself. “Besides, your cheeks aren’t puffed up or anything. You were having a good time, that’s all. See how unaffected your smile is?”

While her instinct was to roll her eyes at his flattery, it was obvious that she could not restrain the corners of her mouth from perking up.

“Which vacation was this taken from again?” she inquired, trying to steer them back to the topic.

A shadow of a scowl passed by his face in a split-second before he answered, “The one after our first major argument.”

“Ahhh… that one,” Jin Ah drawled in recognition. Since she can count all of the instances they fought in those five years of being together in one hand, it was easy for her to pinpoint which lovers’ quarrel he was specifically pertaining to.

When he did not hear her speak in the minute that followed, Seo Jin slowly turned towards her, the distance of their noses reduced to mere inches. He saw her turn wistful all of a sudden, but the deepening of the brown hues in her eyes was betraying the desire ignited by the memory.

“You like what you are remembering?” he teased.

Flashing an innocent stare at him, Jin Ah shook her head and said, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Oh, I know you do,” Seo Jin scoffed, clearly enjoying the fact that she was going along with it.

“I don’t,” she retorted.

He raised a challenging brow at her and shrugged, “I could help you reminisce a thing or two, if you want to.”

“Like how?” she probed, gazing up at him through her lashes as if she was daring him to push his luck.

He grazed the tip of his nose along the hollow of her cheek and exhaled, “A bit of slow-dancing. Candlelit bath…”

“Hmmm…” she purred, her teeth instinctively sinking into her lip as his mouth latched on her skin.

“Lazy afternoons. Late nights.”

“Sounds tempting.”

“Breakfast in bed –”

Jin Ah groaned and mock-chided him, “No, Goo Seo Jin.”

“What?”

“You have mistaken that vacation with this one.”

Jin Ah felt Seo Jin tense, the shower of butterfly kisses on that tender spot under her jaw already halted and long-forgotten.

“I have not,” his faltering voice gave away his doubts.

She giggled in spite of herself, amused by the fact that he was still the same old Seo Jin – the brilliant kid from their batch who sometimes had a recall of a sixty year-old man.

He pulled away looking a little perplexed and asked, “Have I? Really?”

“That weekend where we” – she swallowed involuntarily, breaking herself off mid-sentence – “barely had a wink of sleep, or a lack thereof, was our last out-of-town prior to breaking up.”

“At the lake?”

“On your birthday.”

Although recollections of that final summer getaway began rushing back to him, Seo Jin’s brows furrowed as he wondered, “What did we do the entire weekend of that spring trip, then?”

***

_April 2011_

Even if they talked each other out of it, Saturday and Sunday were spent working on that college project. Seo Jin had an inkling that it was a bad idea to allow Jin Ah to bring her laptop (“I have a pending report to finish,” she told him.) and, for the sake of fairness, he packed his as well. In they end, they scrapped their plans and dedicated two days building the dummy site and running some tests and before they knew it, they were already checking out of the lodging.

“I had that Sunday morning all planned out,” Seo Jin jokingly complained on the drive back home. “We’d go hiking, then have lunch at the town’s oldest restaurant, and –”

“That’s okay, baby. There will always be a next time,” Jin Ah pacified him, reaching up to cradle one side of his stubbled jaw and relishing the pleasant friction under the tips of her fingers. “At least we have accomplished something.”

“I know, I know,” he grumbled, then gently extracted her hand from his cheek to press his lips softly onto her palm. “I’m just a bit disappointed that two days went past without us getting some decent amount of rest and quality time together. Now, we are on our way back to the city and when we wake up tomorrow, it’s going to be Monday all over again.”

She found a way to make it up to him that evening, though. Instead of letting him go when they kissed each other goodnight, she took his hand and led him to her bed, curling up snugly against him as exhaustion drifted them off to sleep.

***

_August 2011_

Cuddling was one of the habits they eventually fell into, a form of intimacy Jin Ah permitted and least felt guilty about. Regardless how her day turned out, she slept soundly every time she was in his arms, breathing in his scent and listening to the steady beating of his heart. Usually, they would seek the comfort of each other’s lips, reaffirming their affections through chaste brushes of their mouths before retiring for the evening. It would be enough until it wasn’t, and once in a blue moon, they would find either of them inciting a flame that could only be quenched by deeper kisses, evocative caresses, and shy whispers for more…

Always more.

Even in their most feverish moments, Seo Jin catered solely to her pleasure, ensuring that she basked in her bliss under his touch and holding her close until the waves of rapture ebbed away. Although he could not quite put a finger on it, he sensed that something was burdening her each time they indulged themselves in risqué closeness, thus he tamed down her frantic heartbeat by lightly sweeping his lips on the crook of her neck, her jaw, and her flushed cheeks before kissing her properly on the mouth, wordlessly assuring her over and over that he adored her, that he cherished her, that he loved her.

It was when he was absolutely certain that she came down from her high that he temporarily left her to take care of his business, often opting for the relief brought by a cold shower while revisiting the captivating visions of her in her most basic state in his mind.

“Where are you going?” Jin Ah asked him one time, holding onto his wrist after he pushed himself up from the mattress.

“Bathroom,” was his curt reply.

“Can I…” she hesitated for a while, yet she mustered every ounce of audacity she had in herself to satiate her curiosity anyway. “Can I help?”

Seo Jin let out a nervous chuckle, then leaned closer to tuck a stray tendril of hair behind her ear.

“It would be very unwise of me if I would say ‘yes’ to that irresistible proposal of yours,” he mumbled, the mischief in his eyes clearly reflected in the boyish smirk that was breaking his face.

Partly disappointed and partly embarrassed, she failed to hold back her rather swollen lips from pouting before she could even say ‘alright’. On the other hand, it was not lost on him how his refusal bruised her ego in some way, so he tried to explain himself without further ado.

“Baby, I badly want to take you up on that offer,” he admitted in defeat. “But for the time being, I think it’s best for us to tread the waters lightly.”

Jin Ah darted her eyes away from him, focusing on a trivial wrinkle on the sheets instead as she said, “I’m sorry. I just… I just thought I could at least return the favor.”

Seo Jin waited a little before he took her hands and kept it safely in his, likewise avoiding her gaze as he clarified, “If you only knew how it thrills me to hear you call my name when you lose control, to feel your fingers cling to my skin as if it was your lifeline, to see the flecks of gold in your irises glow with wanting…”

“Have you ever given it a thought how having your body in my arms could be my undoing, Jin Ah?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I assumed you did not desire me the same way because you wouldn’t let me touch you.”

An onerous pause flitted between them before Seo Jin claimed her lips for the nth time that night with a hunger that Jin Ah never felt before, preferring to cut to the chase and foregoing all the sweet ministrations and preambles with or without her consent. He was relentless, forcing her to open up to him by sneaking a hand underneath her shirt to pinch a sensitive peak of her bosom. The delightful pressure caused her to close her eyes in total abandon and moan in his mouth – a gratified cry and a wanton plea – and he seized the opportunity to taste her and own her, their tongues reacquainting themselves in a luscious tango.

The reignited blaze in her loins made her limbs curl in anticipation and somehow, her fingers found their way to his naked chest and glided downwards – past the tight muscles of his abdomen, his trimmed waist… She swore her heart skipped a beat when her hand landed on the crotch of his pants, ultimately discovering the strange tautness between his legs for herself.

“Yoon Jin Ah,” he managed to break away from her at the last second and say her name through labored pants. “Don’t go there, baby. Please.”

She was dumbfounded, the sheer disbelief of what she had actually done ruthlessly washing over her like a bucket of ice-cold water.

“I… I’m sorry,” Jin Ah stammered as she caught sight of the pained expression of her lover. “I’m so, so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

Seo Jin bit his tongue to prevent himself from uttering a curse, heaving deep breaths as he desperately tried to keep his urges under control. The instant he trusted himself to function a little, he gave his head a weak shake and opened his eyes.

“Do you believe me now when I tell you that” – he gulped – “the feeling was always mutual?”

“I do,” her affirmation came out in a pitchy squeal, eliciting an unexpected laughter from him in turn.

“Thank you,” he sighed. “So be a good girl and get some sleep, okay?”

“Can’t I wait for you?” she timidly asked.

Seo Jin patted the top of her head lovingly and said, “I won’t take long, I promise. We can’t afford to stay up late tonight.”

“It’s Friday,” Jin Ah reminded him.

“We have a meeting tomorrow morning,” he told her as he pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. “I found a potential investor.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

Jin Ah wound her arms around his neck and drew him in for a peck on the lips, then whispered, “Goodnight, Goo Seo Jin.”

“Goodnight, Yoon Jin Ah.”

Of course, she merely pretended to doze off during the short time that he was away, internally admonishing herself for caving in to her perversions once more. It was only when she felt the mattress yield to his weight that she was able to shove the unreasonable shame to the back of her mind and automatically, she molded herself to his embrace, allowing the fragrant scent of peppermint and the oddly-pacifying melody of his subdued snores to lull her to sleep.

They arrived fifteen minutes earlier than the set time for brunch the next day, granting themselves adequate time to run over their pitch before their prospective client came in to the restaurant. It was unlike any other presentation at work because they were selling a platform that they built themselves, an infrastructure that they knew like the back of their hand. With everything successively falling into place, the cards seemed to be stacked up in their favor.

“I have a good feeling about this,” Seo Jin told Jin Ah in a hushed voice. “We will ace this – just like how we did in college.”

She reached sideways for his hand and laced her fingers securely with his, nodding in agreement.

“We’ll do great for as long as we’ve got each other,” she assured him. “I love you.”

“We definitely will,” he whispered back. “And I love you, too.”

Jin Ah gave his hand a tiny squeeze and took a lungful of air, composing herself to put up a confident beam the minute they heard the approaching footsteps. The sound of sharp heels clacking against the smooth marble floor was in flawless synchronization with the ticking of the clock in her head and with each passing second nonetheless, a frustratingly familiar image of a woman came into view.

“Good morning,” the elegant woman Jin Ah recognized as the same girl from the bachelor party greeted them with a customary bow. “My name is Yoo Hee Jin from Ha Neul Holdings. Thank you for setting up this meeting.”

She turned towards Seo Jin shortly after and quipped with a coy smile, “It’s a pleasure to see you again, sunbae.”

“Yoo Hee Jin,” he addressed her, stunned. “I did not know –”

“Well, I asked the person who referred you to our company to keep my identity as a secret,” Hee Jin explained with feigned nonchalance. “If you found out early on that you were having a late breakfast meeting with me, you would not have come at all.”

Seo Jin’s lips turned up into a half-smile and bantered, “If I did, I would have made reservations in that barbecue restaurant I told you about.”

“No way!” Hee Jin exclaimed. “The one owned by the ahjussi who used to cook at our school’s cafeteria? You mean, you found it?”

“I’ll place a reservation for our subsequent meeting,” Seo Jin offered.

“Oh, now there are subsequent meetings,” Hee Jin jeered in jest. “Looks like I should prolong the negotiations to have a second and a third meal with you.”

“With us, actually,” he politely corrected her. “This is my partner, Yoon Jin Ah.”

The two ladies exchange meaningful stares before Hee Jin extended her hand to shake Jin Ah’s and said, “Nice to finally meet you, Miss Yoon. Shall we get down to business, then?”

The thirty-minute drive home was excruciatingly long, thanks to the awkward silence brought about by the revelation of their investor’s identity. Jin Ah stayed quiet the whole time and Seo Jin, knowing well enough that his girlfriend was not at all pleased with their client’s surprise, never attempted to initiate some small talk. The cold treatment extended up until they got home, with her heading straight to the bedroom under the pretense of having a migraine and him plopping himself down on the sofa to watch some TV.

By dinnertime, the hostility grew far too unremitting and Seo Jin decided to march towards Jin Ah’s room to put an end to it.

“Yoon Jin Ah, open up,” he demanded after knocking several times and being ignored. “Let’s talk about this like normal adults would.”

The door opened a few seconds later and Jin Ah stepped out of the room, obviously upset.

“What did you just say?” she enquired without requiring an answer. “Are you implying that I don’t deal with arguments like a grown-up?”

“That’s not what –”

“That was exactly what you meant, Seo Jin.”

“Come on, baby. Tell me what I did wrong this time so I can fix this.”

“Nothing.”

“Bullcrap!” he spat, then almost instantaneously ran a palm down his face to calm himself. “I don’t read minds, Jin Ah. You have to let me know why you’re mad at me.”

Aggravated, she crossed her arms tightly on her chest and huffed, “Do you honestly think that I’d buy into your excuse that you were clueless about this morning’s spectacle? Am I that dumb to you?”

Seo Jin abruptly turned on his heel to fish his wallet out of his discarded jacket that was draped on the armrest of the couch, then traced his steps back to Jin Ah without further delay.

“This is what my contact gave me,” he said, dumping the business card on her hand. “You can check the name of the executive from Ha Neul Holdings whom we were supposed to meet up with today. Go on – find out for yourself that it was not Yoo Hee Jin.”

Not bothering to take a glance at the worthless piece of cardboard, Jin Ah argued, “See? She tricked you! She plotted everything out in order to see you again in spite of being fully aware that you are off the market and still, you were acting all friendly to her a while ago. Is that how you treat someone who deceived you, Seo Jin?”

“I wasn’t acting all friendly; I was acting as if I had some manners, Jin Ah!”

“You offered to set up another lunch date!”

“Seriously? You’re getting worked up because of that?” he snapped. “I did that because she is a prospective investor!”

She stomped her feet in annoyance, her eyes brimming with angry tears as she struggled to put her grievance in plain words for him.

“Can you please stop acting naïve for a minute and understand what I'm trying to tell you right now?” Jin Ah implored him, choking back on the painful lump that was constricting her throat. “She was flirting with you in front of me, Seo Jin, and you were not even inhibiting yourself from flirting back!”

“Is this what I assume it is, Jin Ah? A jealous fit?” Seo Jin taunted her. “Oh god… I was trying to strike a deal with a big company – that’s it!”

“Then, find another representative you can liaise with!” she fired back.

“Are you serious?”

“Do you think I’m kidding?”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I don’t give a damn if I sound stupid to you,” Jin Ah countered through gritted teeth. “What I care about is that you get the hell away from that scheming woman, Goo Seo Jin. If it costs us a client, then so be it.”

Her ridiculous command rendered him speechless and Seo Jin was left with no other choice but to drag out a heavy breath and go straight to the door, taking his keys with him.

When she saw him put on his shoes, she asked, “Where are you going?”

“Dinner,” he grunted. “Hopefully, by the time that I’ve returned, you have come to your senses and you’re rational enough to engage in a diplomatic conversation with me.”

Without another word, he quickly walked out of the apartment, paying no heed to Jin Ah’s objections and slamming the door shut behind him.

It didn’t take too long for Seo Jin to turn the car around and head back to their building because fifteen minutes later, the sky began rumbling. He practically dashed through the flight of stairs since the elevator was out of order and was absolutely short-winded upon reaching their home.

He found her in no time, huddled at a corner hugging her knees. She was crying again, both of her eyes squeezed shut as incontrollable sobs tormented her chest. Her apparent fear of thunderstorms was one of the mysteries he had not uncovered yet, although it did not matter at that moment. All he wanted to do right there and then was to shield her from everything and anything that brought her unhappiness.

In a couple of strides, he crossed the distance between them, his feet crushing the pastel-colored paper stars scattered on her bedroom floor. With the half-empty jar still intact in her arms, he fathomed that she was miserably failing at picking out a trinket that could save her from that evening’s despair.

“Jin Ah…” Seo Jin sighed as soon as he enfolded her in his arms. “I’m here. I’m sorry….”

At once, Jin Ah realized that it was him; he came back for her.

“Oh god… Seo Jin?” she asked as she wept in his drenched shoulders. “I’m so sorry… I’m so sorry, Seo Jin. I…”

“It’s alright, baby. We’ll talk later,” he cooed against her hair. “Please stop crying. I’m here now. I shouldn't have left you alone.”

“I’m so –”

A flash of white light tore through the heavens, followed by a crashing noise that caused Jin Ah to shudder in horror once more.

In the midst of the chaos, Seo Jin ran his hands in soothing motions down her back and reminded her, “I’m here, Jin Ah. I’m not going anywhere.”

The bellows from the skies intensified so much so that Jin Ah cowered further into the corner. She buried her face into his chest, wishing that she could drown out the startling sounds by sinking deeper into his embrace.

“Distract me,” she begged through her tears. “Please, Seo Jin. Distract me.”

Seo Jin momentarily broke away from her to cover her ears with his hands, carefully caging her face as he stared intently into her eyes before capturing her lips in a tender kiss. All through the night, he told Jin Ah with unmatched persistence that he loved her until the thunderstorm ended, until the tremors from her shock subsided, and until she finally believed that he truly did.


	9. A Prelude to a Fire Storm

When they were still a couple, Seo Jin took pride in the fact that him and Jin Ah complemented each other, from small nuances such as her being an eager cook and him being a hearty eater to significant ones like him pushing things that she would rather pull back. He told her stories she patiently listened to and she anchored him to reality when his imagination took him a bit too far. She was a true-blue pessimist, yet he was always there to remind her that the glass was likewise half-full as it was half-empty. While she relentlessly chased time, he constantly slowed her down to savor the moment instead of simply letting it slip through their fingers. His eyes were set on the promises of the future; hers subconsciously lingered on the wounds of the past.

He was not enthusiastic about socializing, so she usually saved him from the awkward conversations among acquaintances and families. She would be the one initiating small talk on his behalf and come up with excuses to leave parties early or avoid attending gatherings altogether. On the other hand, she was able to overcome her bouts with self-doubts thanks to his persistent will to validate and reassure. He was generous with his affections, especially when they were in the privacy of each other’s company, and never failed to be her rock whenever she felt small. He was her true north, the compass that tirelessly kept her from going astray; she was his muse, the guiding genius that inspired him to live in color.

On a lighter note, he also liked the fact that she looked so tiny against him. She was petite and slender standing five feet and five inches tall, a stark contrast to his lean and sinewy built and his height of six feet one. He found this more convenient – quite handy when he wanted to sweep her off her feet like a knight in shining armor – and ideal since he could easily wrap himself around her as if he was her own brand of comfort blanket.

He was doing exactly that after they printed copies of the images they were browsing in his study, hugging her from the back as she reviewed the photographs on her hand. With his chin perched on the top of her head, he could not help but intoxicate himself with the scent of vanilla emanating from her skin which seemed a little too warm to the touch.

“So it turns out that we only had three pictures from that spring trip,” Jin Ah mused as she shuffled through the printouts. “And you took them prior to us checking in.”

“I did, yeah,” Seo Jin agreed absentmindedly while staring at their reflection in the tall window. “We did not leave the room until Sunday night.”

She dramatically sighed and remarked, “Such a shame.”

“It is,” he concurred, nodding slightly. “We can visit the place again if you like.”

She snorted, initially wanting to burst his bubble with a witty retort although she ended up not saying anything.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” he asked when she maintained her silence.

To his surprise, Jin Ah pivoted on her heel and reluctantly faced him without stepping out of his embrace, her lower lip pouting out in the same manner that brought him to his feet and compelled him to submit to her bidding any given Sunday. He tightened his arms around her, jumping at the chance to draw her in. Seeing that her eyebrows were pulling themselves together in a knot on her forehead, he figured that she was torn between letting him down and getting his hopes up.

“You don’t have to answer right away,” Seo Jin told her, withdrawing a hand to soothe that crease with his thumb. “Just… please don’t say ‘no’ for now.”

She hesitated for a while, pursing her lips together before replying, “Then, I won’t.”

At once, the corners of his mouth curled up into a bittersweet smile and he did not need to speak another word for her to understand that he would prefer an open ending over a sad one.

They stood that way for a few more minutes, wistfully looking at each other until Jin Ah observed that Seo Jin was striving to keep himself wide awake. After all those hours spent awake and the wine they consumed that evening, it was a no-brainer that sleep would chase them sooner or later.

Tentatively, she lifted her hand up to cradle his cheek and joshed, “Oh, someone’s getting heavy-eyed.”

“Not me,” he shrugged, subtly shaking off the drowsiness by raising his shoulders.

“Liar,” she snorted. “Go upstairs, Seo Jin. I’ll be fine.”

He tried to stifle a yawn as he said, “If I sleep now, I am afraid that I will wake up too late and find you gone.”

Her heart clenched knowing that he was right. She would leave him at daybreak with or without saying goodbye and there was nothing he could do to change her mind. However, their parting was still hours away and, selfish as she was, she wanted to throw caution to the wind and accept the gratuitous affections he was willing to spoil her with if all the time left to be with him was never meant to last.

“Let’s go,” she murmured shyly. “I’ll tuck you in.”

Seo Jin nervously swallowed before suggesting in a whisper, “Come to bed with me.”

Flushed, Jin Ah’s voice got lodged in her throat, her brain thoroughly messed up by her already fragile resolve to even formulate a coherent response. Instead, she combed her fingers through his hair and tugged him down to her to press a chaste kiss on his lips.

Taking her gesture as a permission, Seo Jin slid his hand down her back ever so slowly to outline her lumbar curve and the swell of her buttocks, ultimately hooking an arm behind her legs to lift her off the floor. He carried her bridal style and it was a miracle how their lips remained tangled up – not to mention, how there was not an instance of them tripping over or bumping onto something – during the brief journey to his bedroom.

He laid her down gently on the mattress, resting his weight on his forearms as he hovered over her breathless. Even if their noses were barely a couple of inches away, their mouths were still seeking for each other, latching on every piece of skin close enough to touch. She purred his name when he started to nibble at her neck and the sound of it encouraged him to venture lower into the dip of the collar of her shirt.

“Seo Jin, wait…”

“Hmmm?”

“Goo Seo Jin, the pictures…” she managed to utter. “Glasses…”

Seo Jin halted and looked at her, adjusting his perspective to behold her beautiful profile in the scarce glow of the stars and city lights from the scenery outside, then only shook his head in disbelief. He allowed himself to be freed from her clasp regardless, pushing himself up to a kneeling position to retrieve the nearly-crumpled photographs from her hand and remove her spectacles. In turn, Jin Ah reached up to carefully take off his.

Once he was done depositing everything on the bedside table, he panted in impatience, “Anything else?”

She bit her lip to restrain a giggle and said, “That’s all, sir. Thank you.”

“Good. Now, where were we?”

“Would you like to cuddle?”

“Just cuddle? Are you kidding me?”

“You don’t want to?”

He heaved out a labored breath in faux chagrin before lying down her left, then extended an arm out to be her makeshift pillow and drew her in. Out of a long-forgotten habit, she snuggled closer and draped an arm around his torso as her free hand found its rightful place on top of his chest.

“Cuddle it is,” he mumbled as he nuzzled her hair.

They stayed that way for a while, legs entwined as they hugged each other on the bed without being burdened to say anything. He was tempering his passions by basking in the fresh warmth gracing his usually cold bed at the same time she was counting down the seconds by feeling the rapid beating of his heart underneath her fingertips.

“Why are you still awake?” she inquired a little later.

“You are still up, too.”

“Goo Seo Jin.”

“Seriously, Jin Ah. How could I drift off after you kissed me like that?”

“Sleep,” she impishly scolded him, no longer able to contain the smirk that was playing on her lips. “Or else, I would go downstairs and curl up on the sofa instead.”

Seo Jin pulled away to tuck a finger under her chin, tilting her face up to meet his gaze as he said, “Please don’t.”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t.”

“Because I missed having you beside me.”

“All the more reason why I should leave this bed.”

“Baby…”

She surveyed him through the slits of her narrowed eyes and grumbled, “You don’t get it, do you?”

“I may be smart, but I am far from being a mind-reader. I’m sorry,” he admitted shamelessly. “You have to spell it out for me sometimes.”

Defeated, Jin Ah allowed her heavy lids to close and buried her face in his chest, hoping against hope that he would not hear her.

“I just might lean on you to chase my nightmares away again, Goo Seo Jin and god knows I cannot let that happen.”

***

_August 2011_

Jin Ah woke up squinting at the bright rays of sun the morning after the thunderstorm. She groaned and almost immediately, she felt the person next to her shift, blocking the light with his shoulder.

“Yoon Jin Ah…” Seo Jin slurred her name in his daze, pulling her in. “Go back to sleep.”

She rolled on her side to turn away from him, grunting, “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“What are you doing in –”

Her protests were lost in oblivion the instant Seo Jin scooted closer and snaked an arm around her stomach, spooning her snugly.

“Please give me two hours more,” he muttered. “I was up until five waiting for you to stop tossing and turning.”

“Was I?”

“Yes, you were.”

“I… I don’t remember.”

“See? Let’s argue after we get a decent sleep or, better yet” – he swooped in to plant a kiss on her temple – “let’s not argue anymore.”

“Two hours, then,” he heard her scoff, though he was sure that the worst was over since he sensed her body relaxing against his.

Jin Ah stirred again after lunchtime and saw that the bed was empty. She sat up and swung her leg down, then quietly made her way out of the room. As soon as she opened the door, the sound of metals clinking and the fragrant aroma of stir-fried vegetables greeted her, inviting her to the dining area where Seo Jin was currently preoccupied with the mundane task of arranging the utensils.

“You should have woken me up when you did,” she said upon arriving at the table.

He flashed a bedimpled smile at her and asked, “Why? Do you doubt my cooking skills that much?”

“Pssh.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” she curtly replied before sitting on her usual spot, wincing as she recalled the last dish he whipped up and how her taste buds hated her for having a bite of it shortly afterwards. “Let’s see how you fared this time.”

He followed suit, warily scrutinizing her reactions (She did not puke – thank goodness!) for an opportunity to open up the conversation both of them were dreading.

“About last night…” he began, consciously stealing glances at her as if he was expecting her to go ballistic or something. “Although I should not have walked away, I also needed to step out and clear my head or else, I would have blurted out words I could never take back.”

“Like what?”

“Like how I’m already tired of fighting?”

In a blink of an eye, Seo Jin saw how Jin Ah’s indifference turned into shock, her pale face drained of the all the residual colors it had. He flinched at the sudden change in her expression and waited for wrath or waterworks or both, yet what he got was a stare that was devoid of the emotions he was anticipating.

Finally, she put her spoon down and spoke, “You are sick of me, aren’t you?”

“What? No… No, Jin Ah,” he stammered, clearly taken aback. “That was not what I meant.”

“That’s it.”

“No. Listen –”

“Are you going to break up with me?”

“Oh god – no. No, baby. Of course not,” he dispelled her presumptions right away, the panic in his chest already manifesting in his voice. “That was not what I was trying to say.”

The tears she was suppressing suddenly gushed out, rolling mercilessly down her cheeks as she choked on her sobs. Without further delay, he rushed to her side to hug her tight.

“We are not breaking up, okay? Do you hear me?” Seo Jin cooed as he ran soothing circles on her back. “I am never going to lose you.”

“Then what, Seo Jin?” Jin Ah cried, frustration getting the best of her.

“I’m fed up with these lovers’ quarrels,” he explained. “Do you have any idea how much energy and how many brain cells are consumed whenever I argue with you?”

She pushed at him and complained, “This is not a joking matter, Goo Seo Jin!”

“I know, I know,” he chuckled in spite of himself. “I am basically painting you a picture of how difficult it is for me.”

Jin Ah looked down at her hands that were gripping the hem of her oversized sleepshirt, chewing on her lip in a futile attempt to keep herself together.

“Yoon Jin Ah.”

“What?”

When she did not look up at him, he knelt in front of her and said, “I am so sorry, Yoon Jin Ah. I was careless. I got too comfortable with the banters that I failed to notice that the coziness was not sitting well with you.”

He ignored the snort he earned from his confession and continued, “It is possible that I enjoyed having those conversations with her because she was a junior from my hometown who had that spirited vibe in her – she’s cute, alright – yet that doesn’t necessarily mean that I am interested in her.”

“Seo Jin, you were flirting with her,” Jin Ah refuted.

“How could you say that?”

“Because you only talk that way whenever you are with me.”

Her remark rendered Seo Jin speechless.

“Well, you used to…” she clarified, still avoiding his gaze. “Now, look at us – yelling at each other and saying nothing but ‘I’m sorry’.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There you go again.”

Resigned, Seo Jin ran a palm down his face and griped helplessly, “Come on, Yoon Jin Ah. I…”

“I am sick of us fighting too,” Jin Ah sighed.

“Then stop doubting me,” he begged as he placed his hands atop hers. “Your misgivings will always come between us until it breaks us up – and I don’t want that.”

After what seemed like a lifetime, Seo Jin spoke again – softly, as if he was foreseeing that his subsequent words could hurt more than it should help.

“I’m not your mother, Jin Ah,” he said, almost whispering as he leaned to make the tips of their noses touch. “I am not going to do something that will break your heart.”

A tiny sob escaped her throat the next second, followed by a single tear rolling down her cheek. He was right; what he told her stung, deliberately scratching a scab that was never going to heal. Still, he supposed it was inevitable for him to throw that harrowing realization out there.

Jin Ah did not become aware that she was holding her breath all along that when he moved closer to press his lips on hers, she gasped. Instantly, her body tensed from head to toe – in protest or in longing, she wouldn’t know – and her hands were ferociously balling into fists beneath Seo Jin’s, her fingernails digging into the sweaty flesh of her palm and almost tearing into her skin.

All the stress from the evening before caught up to him and he closed his eyes in complete surrender, every ounce of strength he mustered to defend himself dissipating into nothingness. She followed suit, her lashes brushing against his cheek – a coup de chance that he could only pray for. He did not push further though, contented that at least, she did not shove him away.

A while later, he pulled an inch away to behold the face he sorely missed and murmured, “What do I have to do to earn your trust, Jin Ah? Tell me. Please.”

“You have it,” Jin Ah confirmed at last, her voice hushed and somber. “You have all of me, Goo Seo Jin.”

“For real?”

“For real.”

“No more fighting over some girl who cannot even hold a candle to you?”

Jin Ah sneered, “Flattery is quite unnecessary at this point, don’t you think? You’ve got me wrapped around your finger even when I am mad at you.”

“Are you still mad at me?” Seo Jin asked.

Her answer was to kiss him squarely on the mouth, her lips moving along his in a gradual crescendo that evoked a series of erratic staccato breaths and heartbeats.

Just as her lungs began to run out of air, she parted from him and said, “How can I stay mad at someone who comes to save me from my nightmares all the time?”

The rest of their Sunday was spent watching some TV show they could not care less about. Jin Ah was resting her head on Seo Jin’s chest as he fiddled with the locks of her hair, her legs comfortably stretched out on the couch. It was almost sunset and the sky was turning into an endless canvas of orange and pink hues adorned with subtle strokes of red. Before them, the mellow rays of the remaining daylights seeped through the window, blessing the living room with a touch of poignant sentimentality that peculiarly punctured her soul despite the nearness and the calm prevailing at the moment.

“Care to share what’s troubling you?” his question dragged her out of her gloomy trance.

She turned her face to the side and burrowed her nose to the hollow of his throat, mumbling, “Nothing in particular.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

Seo Jin shifted behind her, holding her shoulders with utmost care as he sat her upright. He looked straight into her bemused eyes, curious and probing. Jin Ah responded by staring back at him cluelessly, so he had no choice other than to ask her out loud.

“Aren’t you keeping anything from me?”

“I’m not.”

“Will you promise to tell me everything from this point forward?”

“Of course, baby.”

Pushing anxiety aside, he took a deep breath and decided to give it a shot.

“Then, why are you scared of lightning? Of thunderstorms?” Seo Jin asked.

He sensed that his request stunned her and the split-second grimace that broke through her façade was an unmistakable indication of her distress. Nonetheless, it did not deter him from uncovering the skeletons in her closet, if by any chance there were any.

After a minute, he opened his mouth to repeat his inquiry only to be disrupted by her reply.

“That’s not important,” Jin Ah declined.

“It is,” he countered. “And I deserve to –”

“Not all battle scars are meant to be celebrated,” she deflected with a half-smile and her implied dismissal of the subject came off more explicit than she actually intended to.

It did not require Seo Jin a significant amount of effort to read between the lines, thus he simply enfolded her in his arms and permitted her to assume that they had reached yet another impasse.

 _For now_ , he thought. _At least, for now._

***

The same thing was running in his mind as they lay side by side on his bed. Of course, he caught everything she said even as she tried to muffle her voice by speaking against his skin. For some reason, his attention was tuned in to her naturally, as if she was never out of his orbit in those seven years apart. Then again, he acted oblivious out of fear that he might ruin the evening when the only person he ever yearned for was right in front of him, even if it was just for a few hours. In any case, he swore to find the truth about the ghosts that were persistently haunting her before she abandoned him by sunrise.

Nevertheless, his pretense was rewarded by the appeasing feeling of her thumb smoothening the crease between his eyebrows.

“Care to share what’s troubling you?” Jin Ah asked.

“Nothing in particular,” Seo Jin shrugged.

She propped herself up on her elbows and cupped his chin with her dainty fingers, her astute eyes playfully throwing daggers across the short distance between them.

“Goo Seo Jin.”

“What?”

“I think it’s high time for you let me in on your secrets.”

In a heartbeat, he rolled onto his stomach and took her along with him, pinning half of her slender body to the mattress with his weight as he wagered, “Only if you reveal one of yours.”

“I’m not the one who offered to divulge anything in the first place, Seo Jin,” she prompted him. “Don’t push your luck.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try, would it?”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“Why are you afraid of lightning and thunderstorms?”

Jin Ah considered his question for a while, her qualms once again manifesting in the way she studied his face. It made him unnervingly conscious, but he could not take his focus off her dithering yet equally enchanting brown eyes.

“That’s not important,” she told him.

“It is, Jin Ah,” Seo Jin maintained while he traced the rise of her cheekbone with the back of his finger. “And I believe I have the right to know whatever it is I repeatedly have been saving you from. You owe me at least that.”

She took his hand and brought it to her lips, then concluded, “We would have to revisit the storm that devastated us both.”

“I don’t care.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he avowed with an almost-resounding conviction. “And I swear to god, we will emerge from it together unscathed this time around.”

“How can you be so certain that we will?”

“How can you be so certain that we won’t?”

They found themselves at a point wherein they just had to agree to disagree again – an impasse.

 _Funny how some things never changed_ , they pondered as they stared at each other with renewed intensity under the faint light of his bedroom. Jin Ah was still a true-blue pessimist, yet Seo Jin seemingly came back to remind her that the glass was likewise half-full as it was half-empty. While she relentlessly chased all the time they had left in their hands, he was prolonging it in any way possible to savor the remaining moments with her. As always, his sights were set on the promises of the future; hers were regrettably lingering on the wounds of their past.

The only difference was that he was not her true north anymore, the compass that used to tirelessly keep her from going astray as she was no longer his muse, the guiding genius that once inspired him to live in color. Truth be told, deep inside, they were sincerely wishing it was the other way around.


	10. A Cloud Without a Silver Lining (Part 1)

_September 2011_

A secluded path bordered with lush greenery came into view after the car took the last turn to the right. It did not help that it rained that morning because the mist was making the path from the final exit to the vacation house that they rented for the weekend a lot hazier than expected. Seo Jin almost missed it by a hair’s breadth, but thanks to the just-in-the-nick-of-time voice prompt of the navigation app and his deft maneuvering, they were able to duck the corner successfully and, rather fortunately, unscathed.

Stealing a sideway glance to her left, Jin Ah quickly picked up the subtle anxiety brewing inside him. A scowl was plastered on his face and his eyebrows were slightly knitted together, while his fingers were gripping the stirring wheel a little tighter than necessary.

“Is everything alright, baby?” she asked.

Seo Jin snapped out of whatever trance he was in the instant he heard her voice and nodded.

Unconvinced, she had to probe again, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he sighed, then freed his hand of the gear stick and sought for hers, entwining their fingers and filling the spaces in between like the missing pieces of a puzzle. “Of course.”

Without withdrawing from his clutch, Jin Ah reached up to run a thumb on the crease on his forehead – a subtle reminder that she was not someone he could easily deceive.

“Something crossed my mind, that’s all,” he said, answering the question she did not need to verbalize. “I’m sorry for making you worry.”

In a few minutes, the trees sheltering the narrow, unpaved road became less, thus allowing them to finally behold their destination for that weekend: a charming log cabin that looked like it was taken straight out of a storybook, complete with a simple picket fence and a well-tended yard surrounding it. It was so captivating that Jin Ah craned her neck as they drove past the main house to proceed to the garage at the right, mouth agape in child-like wonder.

After parking the vehicle, Seo Jin took a couple of seconds to revel in the success of impressing her yet again just by watching sheer excitement color her face.

“I told you it is going to be worth waking up at two in the morning,” he shrugged. “Do you like it?”

Smiling sweetly at him, Jin Ah leaned over and caged his face in her hands, squishing his cheeks together as she replied, “I love it.”

“And I love you,” he added, then swooped in to kiss her squarely on the mouth.

When Jin Ah stepped out of the house an hour later to retrieve a forgotten pouch, a succession of loud thuds caught her attention. She whipped her head automatically to the direction where the noise was coming from and saw that across the street, a young girl was trapped inside a parked car and was banging the glass with her fists.

“Oh crap! Seo Jin!” she shrieked as she bolted out of the garage. “Seo Jin! Come here!”

Seo Jin came rushing out of the front door seconds after she called him and saw that Jin Ah was already standing beside a car, frantically gesturing at the window of the backseat.

“Baby, what –”

He was able to grasp what the commotion was all about the moment he reached her side. Muttering an expletive under his breath, he dashed towards the front door of the house where the vehicle was parked and relentlessly knocked on the door until a woman peered out.

“There’s a child inside your car, miss!” he told her in between pants.

The woman immediately shifted her gaze towards the sedan and gasped upon seeing the girl in the backseat, “Ga Eun!”

Fortunately, the keys were within arm’s reach and without delay, Ga Eun’s mother grabbed it from the counter and pressed the controls to unlock the car. Right after the beep, Jin Ah opened the door and picked up the wailing kid up to pacify her.

“Oh god! Ga Eun!” the mother cried as she dashed into the scene. “What are you doing there?”

Ga Eun squirmed out of Jin Ah’s arms as soon as she saw her mother, then jumped into the woman’s welcoming arms as convulsive sobs escaped her chest.

“I’m sorry, honey. Mama’s here now,” the woman cooed in her daughter’s ear. “What were you doing inside? I thought you were upstairs with Ga In.”

Stunned, Jin Ah stood on the sidelines as Ga Eun relayed an account of what happened. Apparently, the four year-old girl was playing hide and seek with her elder sister and thought it was a wise move to take cover inside the vehicle. Minutes later, her mother who was busy working in the kitchen suddenly wondered if she forgot to lock the car, so she went to the doorway and clicked on the button of the remote control without knowing that her youngest daughter was crouching on the floor of the backseat. Upon hearing the clicking of the latch, Ga Eun panicked and her mind went blank, instinctively resorting to crying for help until she almost turned blue.

However, none of these details seemed to matter because Jin Ah was already stuck in her own daze as memories of one fateful night in the middle of a thunderstorm came rushing back to her.

It was around that season in 1990 when Jin Ah’s mother, Kim Mi Yeon, had an out-of-town business trip scheduled for the first time in four years. While she was occupied gathering her belongings, a young Jin Ah sat on top of her luggage, pouting as she fidgeted with the ragdoll she was hugging in her arms.

“Momma, don’t go,” she murmured, flashing puppy eyes at her mother who was standing in front of her with hands on either of her hips.

Clad in her favorite black jersey wrap dress and black stilettoes, Kim Mi Yeon curtly clucked her tongue against her palate and shook her head, thereby causing the permed locks of her hair to dance around her heart-shaped face.

“Kids are not allowed at the conference, honey,” she told Jin Ah, imitating her daughter’s frown. “Only grown-ups can enter the meeting halls.”

She slipped her hands into Jin Ah’s armpits and picked the little girl up, then set her down at the opposite side of the bed.

“Besides, I will just be out for a day or two,” she added as she resumed packing her things. “I’ll be back before you know it, honey.”

“But Momma…”

“Hmmm?”

“Who’s going to sing me a lullaby?”

Kim Mi Yeon pivoted on her heel and headed towards her vanity to get her hairbrush before she answered, “Auntie Mi Rae is.”

“Auntie Mi Rae?” Jin Ah shouted in disbelief, then covered her mouth straight away with her hand in case she was heard outside.

Her mother raised a quizzical brow at her, wordlessly asking her why.

Carefully, she slipped her stubby fingers down to her chin and whispered, “Auntie Mi Rae can’t sing.”

Kim Mi Yeon laughed – that whimsical laughter that correspondingly tickled Jin Ah simply by listening to it – and said softly into her daughter’s ear, “She can, honey. Although, more often than not, she’s awfully off-key.”

Half an hour later, Jin Ah sat at the top of the stairs with her chin perched on her small palms while begrudgingly watching her mother leave last minute instructions to her aunt. They were talking about preparing meals or something and then, she saw them walk together towards the kitchen which was located at the far-right corner of their home.

Just as they disappeared from her sight, an idea struck Jin Ah.

Slowly, she descended the steps – extremely cautious not to make a sound – then stepped out of the house and ran towards the garage where her mother’s sedan was parked. By some trick of fate, the backseat door was left unlocked and she slipped into the vehicle fast enough for her mother – who was, by then, also on her way out – to notice.

When she felt the engine revving up underneath her as she sank on all-fours on the floor of the backseat, Jin Ah giggled silently, exulting at her triumph.

Originally, her plan was to surprise her mother the first instance she pulled over. Therefore, Jin Ah waited patiently and buried her face into her arms to smother any noise that might give her away until she unintentionally fell asleep.

When she woke up, it was already nighttime. She found herself alone in the car, stranded at a deserted roadside while torrents of rain splattered hard against the windows.

“Momma?” Jin Ah called out, her voice tense and faltering. “Where are you, Momma?”

Remembering what her parents taught her, she searched for the handle and yanked it towards her. She did her best not to panic, yet the aching lump on her throat was becoming too difficult to ignore – especially when she tried opening the door several times to no avail.

“Momma! I’m here! Help! Momma!” she screamed through her hysterical sobs as she knocked on the glass with her tiny knuckles. “Momma, where are you?”

Still, in spite of all her efforts, no one came to her rescue.

All of a sudden, lightning tore through the skies and thunder rumbled almost instantaneously, causing her to flinch and cower at the corner of the backseat. She was shivering in fear, her face tucked in her chest as she hugged her knees, and tears were incessantly streaming down her ashen cheeks.

“Momma…” she cried helplessly. “Come back, Momma. Come back for Jin Ah, please…”

Jin Ah was not able to recall when she passed out, but the voice of her mom stirred her to full awareness moments later.

“Wait…” she heard her mother say, followed by a keening noise that forced her to open her eyes.

Her mother’s breathy purrs continued to ring in her ears as Kim Mi Yeon’s form came into focus. From that point forward, everything that unfolded before her confused Jin Ah: the smiling face of the woman sitting on the passenger seat was in stark contrast to the pained mewls reverberating in the confines of the vehicle and a hand that did not belong to her mother was on her thighs, gliding upwards and pushing the smooth fabric of her black dress to pool at her waist.

“Man Seok… please…”

Kim Mi Yeons’s eyelashes fluttered as a man leaned over to kiss her jaw, her neck, the hollow of her throat…

“Hold on…” she melodiously moaned as the man’s lips went further down her chest. “Ohhh… yes. Yes…”

Initially, Jin Ah thought that the man was hurting her mother, so she mustered all the remaining strength in her to push herself up from where she lay on the backseat to intervene.

“Stop…” she feebly warned the man through quivering lips. “Ahjussi… stop it.”

Kim Mi Yeon froze on the spot, then darted her eyes towards the disoriented girl who was staring back at them. Intuitively, she shoved the man away from her at once and crawled towards the back of the car to enfold her daughter in her arms.

Nevertheless, just as she settled in her seat, Jin Ah fainted.

“J-Jin Ah…” Kim Mi Yeon stammered as she lightly shook her daughter’s shoulders. “Yoon Jin Ah… Come on, honey. Wake up –”

“What is she doing here?” her lover fretted from the driver’s seat.

“I don’t know!” she snapped at him, eyes fiercely glaring and brimming with anxious tears. “Let’s take her to the hospital. Hurry!”

The subsequent events were a blur to Jin Ah either due to the state she was in or the fact that the incident occurred a very long time ago. And because she was slipping in and out of consciousness throughout her short stay at a nearby medical center, she was only able to recall a few things.

Like the doctor telling her mother that she passed out from stress and overfatigue, the nurses mumbling amongst themselves about a four year-old child who was trapped inside the vehicle all by herself for twelve grueling hours, and her mother weeping at her bedside while repeatedly uttering hushed apologies.

“Honey, I’m sorry. I should have checked the vehicle. I should have…” she heard her mother whisper against her cheek. “Oh god! Jin Ah, I am so sorry…”

“…Jin Ah?”

Seo Jin’s voice startled Jin Ah and hauled her out of her grim stupor.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She weakly nodded, then said, “Let’s go back to the house.”

Jin Ah excused herself for the rest of the day by telling Seo Jin that she was having a bad bout of migraine. They ended up spending the afternoon lying side-by-side on the bed with half of her body draped across his and her head resting on his chest. From time to time, she felt him shift only to wound his arm tighter around her waist, pressing her closer to him.

She was sure that he knew that neither of them was sleeping and yet, he kept his questions to himself as usual. For that, she could not help but be grateful to the supreme beings for giving her someone who had an understanding as immense as his.

“I want to ask you something,” Seo Jin murmured against her hair about an hour before sunset.

Jin Ah gulped before she replied, “Go ahead.”

“Would you like to come with me?”

“Where to?”

“It’s supposed to be a secret.”

She looked up to jokingly glare at him through narrowed eyes and groaned, “Goo Seo Jin.”

“You’ll see,” he snickered, then propped himself up on his elbows, taking her along with him as he sat up. “Come on, baby.”

They reached the entry to the woods just before the sunset and instead of driving straight ahead, Seo Jin pulled over at the side of the road, right in front of a tattered wooden arrow pointing to a rough path going east.

After switching the engine off, he alighted the vehicle and walked around the car to open the door for Jin Ah and lead her by the hand.

“Seo Jin, where are you taking me?” she impatiently inquired as they traversed the graveled trail.

Smirking, he gave her a little squeeze and shrugged. Stubborn as always, she glowered at him in response and opened her mouth to demand for details. Nevertheless, she was rendered speechless as soon as a breathtaking view welcomed her at the end of the rugged track.

Beyond the cliff were two lofty, emerald mountains with uneven ridges that gradually undulate from the summit to its base and nestled in their midst was a pristine, subterranean lake. The tranquil surface was glistening under the rose-colored sky, accentuating the horizon and transforming the turquoise water into a muddled palette of warm orange, flaming red, and striking magenta.

As they took another step forward, a chilly breeze carrying the earthy scent of dewy moss and fresh stream blew past them, dampening their skin and causing the fine hair covering her arms and nape to rise.

The tiny shiver that coursed through her body was not lost on Seo Jin and he stood closely behind her in a heartbeat to wrap his oversized cardigan around them.

Reaching up on her tiptoes, Jin Ah tilted her head to the side to nuzzle the base of his neck. She shut her eyes to savor the moment with him and let out a contented sigh as she allowed the pleasant smell of the wind and his own peppermint delight her olfactory.

“What?” Seo Jin asked, chuckling at the ticklish sensation.

“Nothing,” she breathed against his cool skin. “It just doesn’t make any sense that you are giving me these gifts when you are the one celebrating your birthday today.”

After considering her musings for a second or two, he gazed down at her and said, “Being here with you is a gift in itself, Jin Ah, and I seriously could not ask for more.”

“We could have thrown a simple party at the house or had dinner at a small restaurant with your friends and colleagues,” she pondered aloud, her contemplative eyes probing into his.

He wrinkled his nose in protest and told her with a hint of sarcasm, “You know how fond I am of social gatherings, right?”

“Right,” she agreed, nodding slowly. “I guess I’m only afraid that eventually, you might feel as if you are stuck with me.”

“I will always prefer to be stuck with you.”

“In a bad way.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“Well…” she began, obviously hesitating to proceed. “What if one day, you realize that you have grown tired of me and my emotional baggage and still, you choose to stay simply because you are worried that I have no other place to go?”

His vacillating resolve manifested in his features for a split-second and it was so quick that Jin Ah almost missed it.

Regardless, she dispelled her own qualms and believed him when he replied, “I don’t see that happening.”

“How can you be so certain that it won’t?”

“How can you be so certain that it will?”

Jin Ah did not answer. Instead, she tore her eyes away from his and stared straight ahead to watch the advent of twilight while he continued to whisper sweet nothings in her ear.

That evening, they had barbecue at the backyard and ate under the glow of a string of lights. They chatted for a long time, trying to catch up on each other’s private lives after the hectic weeks at work turned them into mere roommates than lovers, and miraculously found themselves genuinely laughing again.

They retreated to the bedroom half past-nine and out of the blue, Seo Jin fired up the old stereo sitting at the corner and slipped in a CD he haphazardly picked from the stack beside it.

The odds seemed to be in his favor that night because soon enough, the soft and sublime notes of Tony Benett and K. D. Lang’s cover of “La Vie En Rose” filled the dim room – a fitting selection for a slow-dance.

He took her hand to draw her in, spontaneously positioning their arms into their rightful places: hers around his neck and his encircling her waist. Putting formalities aside, they just held each other close and gently swayed to the mellow rhapsody.

_Hold me close_   
_And hold me fast_   
_This magic spell you cast_   
_This is la vie en rose_

Seo Jin was aptly reminded by their stance that she was actually so small and fragile in his arms (Without her wedges or heels, the top of her head barely reached his shoulders.), hence he secured his hold on her hips and lifted her up to place each of her feet on top of his.

“Hey! What was that for?” she asked through a stifled fit of giggles.

He simply flashed his bedimpled grin at her and admitted, “I kind of wanted you near me so I could do something with ease.”

“Do what?”

_When you kiss me_   
_Heaven sighs_   
_And though I close my eyes_   
_I see la vie en rose_

“This.”

Without a warning, he pressed his lips onto hers and tenderly nipped at the supple flesh – kissing her gingerly at first and with significantly growing persistence as the seconds went past. She was clinging to his shoulders for dear life before she knew it, stretching herself up until she seamlessly melded her mouth with his.

_When you press me_   
_To your heart_   
_I’m in a world apart_   
_A world where roses bloom_

Consequently, either of them was proving to the other that nothing in the world shall ever be an impeccable fit except for the two of them together at that specific instant: tongues conquering and capitulating, hands latching on flesh and bone, and hearts pounding to a matching, erratic rhythm in perfect synchronization.

_And when you speak_   
_Angels sing from above_   
_Everyday words_   
_Turn into love songs_

Equally short-winded, they broke the kiss at the same time and observed how they both desperately struggled to catch adequate air to fill their burning lungs and tame their insatiable wanting for each other’s nearness.

_Give your heart_   
_And soul to me_   
_And life will always be_   
_La vie en rose_


	11. A Cloud Without a Silver Lining (Part 2)

_September 2011_

Remnant echoes of their frenzied heartbeats decelerated in tune with the fading melody. As the last chords of the song played out, their passions were reduced to smoldering gazes and unspoken declarations of how much they craved for each other and how much they feared stepping out of the line they drew themselves.

“I love you, birthday boy,” Jin Ah managed to tell him through ragged breaths. “And I am truly sorry I had to oblige you to turn down that offer from Ha Neul Holdings.”

Seo Jin squeezed his eyes shut and a pained expression crossed his face like a phantom shadow before he was able to phrase a reply, “Don’t worry about that, baby. It’s alright.”

“No… I was asking for too much, Seo Jin,” she mumbled. “And still, you acquiesced to my demands like you always do.”

He shook his head and pulled her closer until her ear was placed directly over his heart.

“I love you so much, that’s why,” was the only response he could muster that held some truth to it.

Jin Ah smiled in spite of herself and hugged him tighter until a soft grunt escaped his throat, her sneaky move clearly taking him by surprise. She then burrowed her nose on his chest to bathe in the last notes of peppermint emanating from his body after another long day.

Lifting her face to stare deeply into his eyes, she said, “I promise I will make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Profoundly tormented by a guilt that was known to him alone, Seo Jin dragged out a burdened exhale and muttered, “Jin Ah, there is something I —”

His revelation was pre-empted the second she took his hand and guided him to the bathroom. Upon reaching the marbled chamber, she closed the door and wordlessly instructed him to sit on the edge of the tub as she started shedding off her clothes at a leisured pace — one garment at a time — until she was utterly in the altogether before him.

Jin Ah plucked all the remaining strength in her to restrain the quiver in her voice, then proposed, “Shall we take a bath together?”

“Do you plan to make amends or drive me out of my wits?” he clarified in an unusually rough baritone that betrayed his crumbling resistance.

Even with the seriousness of the situation, she laughed — that carefree laughter that correspondingly tickled him simply by listening to it — and told him, “It’s called ‘hitting two birds with one stone’.”

“You are holding my self-control in ridiculously high regards, Jin Ah,” he admitted. “What if I am not able to stop?”

“Oh, I know that you will,” she scoffed as her fingers ghosted along the hem of his shirt, ready to push it upwards and lift it over his head. “In the first place, you swore you will never do anything that might break my heart. Am I right, baby?”

Seo Jin winced as her words inadvertently struck a nerve. Of course, he made such promise and did everything to keep it. He aspired to be that someone whom she trusted unconditionally, the man she needed by her side, the other half that completed her, the hero that could protect her from all the pain, the hurt, the tears…

That was why a week ago, when he was caught between two choices that would categorically upset her one way or another, he had to go with what he presumed was the lesser evil.

One evening after picking up some groceries, he saw a man slumping in a narrow alley while en route to the parking lot. Although he had to do a double take, he recognized who beaten-up stranger was.

“Mr. Yoon?” Seo Jin asked as he approached the man, his voice cracking in panic. “Is that you?”

The man spat blood out of his mouth and glared at the younger person standing in front of him with half-shut eyes.

“Who the hell are you supposed to be?” he grumbled. “I already told you scoundrels that I don’t have cash on me right now!”

Without delay, Seo Jin extended a hand and said, “We have not been formally introduced yet, but my name is Goo Seo Jin. I… I am Jin Ah’s boyfriend.”

The man’s face lit up upon hearing his daughter’s name and he scrambled to his feet to grab Seo Jin by the shoulders. He crouched a little, anxiously darting his eyes towards various directions as if he was hiding from someone.

“Yoon Sang Ki,” he slurred, trembling in unease. “Is she with you?”

“No, sir. She’s at home,” Seo Jin assured him. “I thought you were at the countryside.”

Slowly, Yoon Sang Ki loosened his hold on Seo Jin a bit and straightened his stance, then explained unconvincingly, “I had some business to attend to.”

“I see,” Seo Jin acknowledged his excuse regardless. “Would you like me to take you to the hospital?”

“Don’t bother. I can go there myself,” the older man shrugged. “I have something more important to ask from you.”

“What is it, Mr. Yoon?”

“Do you have money?”

“What?” Seo Jin blurted out before he could help himself. “What do you mean?”

Yoon Sang Ki pointed towards his bloodied features and told Seo Jin, “The men who did this to me are chasing me for some cash I owed them.”

As Seo Jin began to fully fathom the unfortunate circumstances the man was stuck in, he did a hasty calculation of his savings in his head.

“I don’t really have a lot right now, sir,” Seo Jin murmured shortly afterwards. “How much are we talking about here, though?”

“Around three million.”

“Three million won?”

An uncomfortable silence followed. The amount Jin Ah’s dad needed was worth everything he had in his bank account — probably more. If he took all of his money out in one go, he and Jin Ah will most certainly be kicked out of the apartment a month later and would be forced to live in his car.

After a minute, he told Mr. Yoon, “I have some savings, sir. However, I doubt it would be enough. Let me call Jin Ah —”

“No! Don’t tell her!” Yoon Sang Ki curtly cautioned him.

“Sir, she has to —”

“Let’s leave Jin Ah out of this, alright?”

Hesitation colored Seo Jin’s face — not because he did not want to help the man (He was Jin Ah’s father, after all.), but because there were a lot at stake if he agreed to. First, he would have to rely on his next paychecks to pay his share of their bills, which was a very risky move in itself; second, he would risk hurting Jin Ah lest she found out that he kept this piece of information from her.

“Listen, boy. They are expecting me to miraculously produce the cash now,” Yoon Sang Ki said when it was already taking Seo Jin a while to answer. “Even if I told them over and over that I can secure them the money in a few weeks, they did not let me go unscathed. Those men threatened me that they are going to come after me and my daughter until I pay up.”

“You are buying me some time,” he emphasized in an effort to convince Seo Jin. “Time that is nearly equivalent to my life — and Jin Ah's too.”

Blindly throwing logic out of the window, Seo Jin asked, “If I lend you the cash, how soon can you return it?”

“What?” Yoon Sang Ki spat, obviously offended.

“Please don’t misunderstand, sir. My concern is that Jin Ah and I would be homeless if I do not get the money back on schedule,” Seo Jin meekly clarified. “You see, my savings are not sufficient for the amount that you require so I have to withdraw the budget for our expenses to patch the deficit up.”

Yoon Sang Ki eyed him with scrutiny for a couple of seconds before he replied, “Give me a month. I will transfer it to your account right away.”

Resigned, Seo Jin barely nodded in agreement. He then fished out his wallet from his blazer to check if he brought his cards with him and almost instantaneously, he saw something that conjured up an idea that could save Jin Ah’s dad from the loan sharks without jeopardizing their finances should it happen that the man failed to keep his end of the bargain.

“On one condition, Mr. Yoon,” he respectfully stipulated as his unsteady fingers dialed the number on the business card. “You have to let me inform Jin Ah about this after you have sorted everything out. She deserves the truth, no matter how ugly it is.”

“Fine!” Yoon Sang Ki growled in vexation. “Whatever. Just get me that darn cash.”

Begrudgingly, Seo Jin pressed ‘Call’ and waited for someone to pick up. A huge part of him was praying that no one would, yet — as luck would have it — a woman greeted him at the third ring.

 _Hello, sunbae!_ Yoo Hee Jin’s voice was perky as usual. _How are you?_

“Hello, Yoo Hee Jin,” he responded in a tone that was rather half-hearted. “Can we meet up tomorrow morning?”

_What's up?_

“I would like to reconsider your proposal for the application.”

_Well, actually, my schedule is packed until noon._

“Oh… I see.”

_Why don’t we meet for lunch at that restaurant you were telling me about?_

All of a sudden, he was rendered speechless. He was physically on a standstill, his body devastatingly consumed by the distress from the unexpected dilemma; mentally, he was pacing back and forth, torn between options that would most likely disappoint her in equal measure.

 _Hello? Are you still there?_ he heard Yoo Hee Jin ask. _Goo Seo Jin?_

“Goo Seo Jin.”

Seo Jin snapped out of his trance at once and saw Jin Ah staring at him, eyes curious and bothered.

He shook his head as if the mere gesture was enough to purge his apprehensions and affirmed, “I will never do anything to hurt you, Jin Ah.”

Smiling, she breathed a quiet sigh of relief and said, “That’s my boy.”

Without warning, she captured his lips in a hungry kiss that viciously wrung his heart, her unbridled devotion consequently torturing his conscience. Unbeknownst to her, he turned back on his word and he had three more weeks to keep that secret to himself. But there she was, showering him with a love a liar like him did not deserve.

Every flick of her tongue was fueling the despicable greed inside him and he countered her motions with matching fervor, tasting every nook and corner as if he was making sweet love to her mouth. She was a willing victim under his spell and her satiated sighs and soft moans formed a mesmerizing chant that spurred him to be more aggressive so much so that the erotic fusion of their essences blurred their identities until neither him nor her existed.

It was only them. And frankly, at that moment, nothing else in the universe mattered.

Dazed, it was a little too late for him to notice that her fingers were already inching downwards, tracing the ridges of his chest and abdomen through the thin fabric of his shirt before tugging at it.

When he groaned in protest, she lightly bit his lower lip and broke away from him to whisper her demand, “Take this off — now.”

Seo Jin was a puppet on a string, born to heed Jin Ah’s bidding against his better judgment. A minute later, he stood naked in front of her and her warm body automatically pressed against his, enveloping him in an intimate embrace. Her mouth found its way to his jaw, nibbling at that spot where his pulse erratically throbbed. Simultaneously, his hands latched on the curves of her waist, squishing the supple flesh to a point wherein his nails left crescent marks on her alabaster skin, earning himself a sultry whimper as a reward.

Just as he was about to glide his palm upwards to commence his preambles with her breasts, she gently swatted his arms and pinned them to his sides. Her chiding came in the form of a melodic hum and in the succeeding seconds, she dragged her lips south to feather kisses along the length of his torso, outlining his sinewy abdomen with her tongue and kneeling before him in the process.

He immediately held her by the shoulders to thwart her further advances and gasped, “No, baby. You don’t have to —”

The prickling sensation of her fingers grazing his pelvis cut him off and in turn, obliterated every rational thought that was left in his lust-ridden brain. Instinctively, a guttural grunt reverberated in his chest as he anticipated her touch to land at the place where he desperately needed it.

Nevertheless, it was nothing compared to the instant when his obscene dreams of her pleasuring him came true. The combination of bliss and ache was absolutely blinding that he had to close his eyes to gain a bit of composure to keep himself upright while he savored her sensual caresses.

Yes, her tentative strokes betrayed her inexperience — something he always assumed given that he was her first boyfriend, first kiss, first everything. Then again, she was virtually a polymath and everything and anything she might have read about the act was done with meticulous accuracy. Before he knew it, his knees were buckling under him and his hips were undulating to keenly welcome her ministrations.

She did not have to be a genius to recognize his reluctance to yield to her, so she sought to shatter his barriers by deliberately brushing her mouth once over the tip of his arousal. The abrupt attack scorched him to the core, causing him to cuss under his breath and haphazardly seize a fistful of her hair in a poor attempt to pull her head back.

“Enough, Jin Ah,” Seo Jin gruffly told her. “I’m good… I’m good, baby. Get up.”

Jin Ah looked up at him coquettishly through her lashes and said, “No.”

“Baby, please…”

“What?”

“Come here,” he feebly requested. “I can only take too much teasing.”

“Do you not enjoy this, Seo Jin?” she innocently inquired, though her wanton thirst was visibly manifesting in her dilated pupils. “Have you not imagined me loving you this way?”

“A million times,” he confessed in a low baritone that gave away his carnal desire.

She tantalizingly licked her lips, skating her tongue on the plump folds to assert her position on the matter at hand and murmured, “Then, let me.”

Despite granting his consent, Seo Jin was stubborn to unreservedly cave into his primal urges. He controlled his reactions and kept his impulsive movements to a minimum, compelling Jin Ah to take cues from the rare sounds he was subtly emitting to distinguish what hurt him and what pleased him.

And even when he ultimately reached his peak, she persisted in sheathing him within that succulent mouth of hers to emulate a fraction of the satisfaction she could give him if and when they decided to consummate their ardors at last.

When the tremors subsided, Seo Jin allowed himself to collapse and sit on the cold rim of the tub, totally spent from their recent toils. He tried to open his eyes to behold the beauty of his seductress, yet the perspiration that trickled from his scalp was already dampening his lids, making him squint.

Still, he watched in awe as Jin Ah rose to her feet to straddle him. She wound her arms around his neck and nudged his nose with hers, expressing a hushed non-apology for her tenacity.

Without further ado, he crossed the infinitesimal gap between them by crushing his lips onto hers, kissing her thoroughly. He tasted himself whenever their tongues danced around each other — a solid reminder that she permitted him to taint her in a manner that was novel to both of them. Shamelessly, that notion caused him to brim with pride.

“You are my undoing, Yoon Jin Ah,” he mumbled in her ear minutes later.

She nodded shyly, chewing on the lower fleshy fold of her mouth before telling him, “As you are mine.”

“Why did you do that?”

“Isn’t that what lovers do?”

Unexpectedly, they both ran out of arguments — either due to exhaustion or the fact that they were awash with shame for different reasons. Though she strove to conceal the mortification that was eating her from the inside and he tried to downplay the disquiet stirred by his deception, their remorse flagrantly burned in their darkened irises.

Jin Ah was the first to concede in their staring match and she avoided his gaze by burying her face in the crook of his neck.

“I want you, Seo Jin, in case you have not wrapped that smart head of yours around that truth yet,” she whispered her admission against his damp skin. “I want your hopes and your dreams, your doubts and your fears…”

“I want to own your affections” — she continued, peppering butterfly kisses along his jugular — “in the same way I want your pleasure to be exclusively mine.”

“I am yours, Jin Ah.”

“I know.”

“I love you.”

She momentarily pulled back to look at him and ensure that he grasped her sincerity as she said, “I love you too, Goo Seo Jin, and no one else will come close. Not now, not ever.”

As he absorbed the weight of her words, Seo Jin had to fight back the lump that was constricting his throat. Without question, he would do anything for her: he would beg, he would borrow, he would steal. He would even lie to shelter her from everything in the world that could hurt her — her father and himself included. But he just could not bring himself to tell her what he had done.

That night, in the shelter of her arms, he failed to gather adequate courage to let her down.

When he felt her shiver, he hurriedly scooped her up and carried her back to the room, laying her down on the bed carefully with him hovering closely over her like a blanket.

Jin Ah playfully hit his chest as she objected through a fit of giggles, “Hey! We should be taking a bath.”

She was positive that he heard her. However, his lips were already descending the surreptitious path from the hollow of her neck to the apex of her thighs.

“Bath can wait,” was the last thing Seo Jin muttered before he took his turn in providing her the decadent rapture her body was likewise yearning for.

Half a month later, Jin Ah came home in high spirits after meeting with friends at a downtown noraebang. Seo Jin could sense how ecstatic she was from where he sat in the living room and he noted how she practically bounced on her heels as she dashed towards the couch.

“Seo Jin, I found us a client!” she exclaimed with bated breath.

Even without a mirror in front of him, he was sure that color drained from his face straightaway.

“Really?” he stuttered.

She bobbed her head with palpable excitement and answered, “Really! One of my high school buddies is currently employed in a company that is scouting for a service provider who can manage their website. I told her that we can do that and eventually segued into the application we were working on.”

“She said she’ll book us an appointment with her boss two days from today,” she added when he did not respond. “We are finally pitching our baby! Can you believe it?”

Thunderstruck, Seo Jin returned her good news with a petrified stare. He was rummaging his mind for an explanation, a justification — anything other than the truth — and came up empty.

It was definitely the time for reckoning.

“Jin Ah, there’s something you have to know,” he began, his voice miserably faltering on the first word.

Missing the stark signs of his qualms, Jin Ah caged his face in her hands and tenderly rubbed the tip of her nose against his.

“What is it?” she asked.

Seo Jin inhaled deeply, committing the fragrance of vanilla that was innately hers to memory as he braced himself for the inevitable storm that arrived sooner than he thought, before he was left with no choice other than to reply.

“I sold the app.”


	12. Aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains scenes depicting violence. Please proceed with caution.

_October 2011_

“What did you just say?”

Seo Jin wanted to avert the piercing stare from Jin Ah, but for some reason, his body had been frozen on the spot. Even turning his body away from her seemed like an arduous task. It did not help that she was sitting closely beside him on the couch which suddenly grew a little narrower and more cramped than usual, almost suffocating him.

Was it because he was downright feeling guilty about making that difficult choice? Was it because he knew he deserved the daggers she was throwing at him?

“I… I don’t understand,” she mumbled with a nervous chuckle and the smile she saved for him still eerily plastered on her face. “What do you mean?”

He attempted to answer her question several times and hesitated, mouth opening and swiftly closing shortly after. Somehow, the words persisted to evade his grasp.

How could one tell the person in the world who trusted him the most that he betrayed her? How could one admit to the woman he pledged to be honest with for always that he purposely kept the truth to himself? How could one shatter a broken soul’s heart while trying to protect it?

“I sold it to Ha Neul Holdings a few weeks ago,” he dragged out the truth from his chest in one shaky breath. “I reconsidered their offer —”

“Ha Neul?” she spat the name with much distaste. “We both agreed that we are taking them out of the equation, right? W-why the hell are they back in the picture, Seo Jin?”

He could easily inform her about her father’s debts, which thrusted him to the sticky situation he was currently in. Yet, his one-month agreement with Yoon Sang Ki was not due until the following week.

And more than breaking his promise, he was concerned that he might inadvertently add further fissure to the already fragmented relationship between the man and Jin Ah.

Exasperated, he ran a palm down his face and heaved out a labored sigh.

“They increased their offer — fifty percent of the original bidding,” the only truth he could divulge for the time being swiftly tumbled out his mouth.

Jin Ah leaned back, therefore emphasizing her inclination to detach herself from him. By then, her jovial face was twisting into a grimace that showed equal measures of her confusion and simmering anger.

“So what?” she blurted out. “Come on, Seo Jin. You know money was never the issue here.”

“Jin Ah, I…”

“What, Seo Jin? Speak up!”

“I thought it would be best for us to reevaluate, okay?”

With a bitter snort escaping her throat, she rolled her eyes at the absurdity of everything she was hearing at the moment.

Reluctantly, Seo Jin reached for her hand as he said, “Baby, listen to me —”

Jin Ah abruptly withdrew her hand and rose to her feet, then shouted, “What the heck is wrong with you, Seo Jin!? We are not going to sell the app to Ha Neul! Not now, not ever — end of discussion!”

He stood up at the exact instant that she did, although he maintained a safe distance.

“Look, Jin Ah. We are practically underdogs here,” he explained calmly. “We have not established a name for ourselves yet and still, they trusted us. It wouldn’t be wise for us to shut down Ha Neul’s offer, especially since they raised the price without us asking.”

“Besides, the contracts have been signed,” he proceeded in a muted tone. “It’s a done deal.”

“But I told you why I refuse to work with them!”

“Look — I am not liaising with Yoo Hee Jin.”

“I don’t care!”

It was Seo Jin’s turn to be taken aback.

“W-what? What do you mean you don’t care?” he stammered. “You told me that it would be fine to transact with Ha Neul for as long as the representative is not Yoo Hee Jin.”

“I never said that.”

“You did! I can clearly remember —”

“I lied, Seo Jin!” she was furious at him. “Even if you meet with other representatives, you will always cross paths with that woman — and I am definitely not okay with that! With that smart brain of yours, you should have figured that out!”

“What kind of shit is that, Jin Ah!?” he screeched through gritted teeth. “So because the green-eyed monster of yours reared its ugly head, you think it is reasonable to let go of more than a million won? Do you realize how stupid that sounds?”

“Don’t you ever call me stupid.”

“I never said that.”

Squeezing her eyes shut, Jin Ah covered her lips with equally trembling fingers. Neither of them dared to speak from then on, exceptionally aware that they were skating on thin ice.

After a while, she removed her hand from her mouth and placed it on one hip for support, as if bracing herself for the onslaught of the storm.

“So that’s it. You deem my feelings invalid because it does not make sense to you,” she huffed as she glared at him with her chin tilted upwards, a gesture in blunt contrast with the falter in her argument. “Do you honestly believe that it gives you the right to decide on this on your own and to hide it from me?”

Worn-out from coming up with alibis, he shook his head in resignation and plopped himself down on the sofa. Considering the motivation behind the tough choice he made, he was adamant to accept the blame. Thus, he stubbornly turned his face away from her and crossed his arms on his chest.

In desperation, she clenched her fists on her sides and raised her voice as she demanded, “Seo Jin, I am asking —”

“And what do you want me to tell you as a response, Jin Ah?” he snapped at her, his aura fuming with resentfulness. “That I am sorry? That I was wrong? What the heck — you don’t even have an idea why I had to do it!”

She grumbled, “Then I need you to help me understand why you did this to me — to us!”

“It’s because of this freaking reaction!” he bellowed, irritated. “It’s because your emotions are already getting the best of you and frankly, it’s not healthy anymore!”

“Do you even have an inkling of how much it kills me whenever you go ballistic about Yoo Hee Jin? Or whenever you shoot down my questions about the bad dreams that ceaselessly torment you?” he asked her. “I doubt myself to a point wherein I’ve begun hating myself for not being worthy of your trust, and god knows how hard I tried to earn even a tiniest bit of your faith, Jin Ah — I am basically begging on my knees for it!”

“I am sick of all this,” he hissed as he darted his focus away from her, his tone becoming somber with each second. “I am sick of saving you from the nightmares you don’t want to bring to light, of picking up half the load of a burden you don’t care to share… It’s exhausting.”

She clenched her jaw and seethed, “I did not ask you to do those things.”

With Seo Jin’s eyes fixated on the wall before him, he was not able to see how his harsh answer utterly stunned Jin Ah. It was as if all blood rushed out of her body until she was nothing but an empty vessel, devoid of whatever hope he instilled in her over the course of their seven-year love story.

Or probably, he caught a glimpse of the devastation on her face and just pretended not to notice because it seemed as if he no longer cared to filter his subsequent statement.

“Then again, I still had to, right?” he provoked her. “Or else, you will fall apart.”

Blinking her tears away, she mustered the courage to tell him, “I fought my demons for you, Seo Jin. You cannot imagine how difficult it is for me to do that every single day.”

He chortled dryly, then countered, “How could I if you are persistently refusing to let me in?”

A period of dreadful silence ensued which was interrupted when he spoke again a couple of minutes later.

“I told you that the fighting is never going to end unless you give me a fraction of your trust, Jin Ah,” he muttered as he stared blankly into space, defeated.

She swallowed the choppy sobs back to her chest and murmured, “I trust you. Haven’t I said that enough?”

Finally, Seo Jin looked at her and the stony expression on his face hurled a thousand accusations her way.

“That’s bull and you know it,” he outright contradicted her.

Throat parched from tension, Jin Ah gulped again, then breathed out, “Me choosing to spare you from the unpleasant truths about my life does not give you a free pass to hurt me this way.”

“Yes,” he bitterly agreed. “Though it makes us even.”

Those few words were the last straw.

With a heavy heart, Jin Ah shifted her gaze downwards to hide the falling tears and turned on her heel to head straight to her room. When she emerged from it half an hour later, she had a luggage on her hand and a stuffed knapsack on her back.

Seo Jin, who coincidentally was stepping out of the kitchen with a glass of water in his hands, caught her at the precise moment she opened the front door, the reality of their quarrel's aftermath stopping him on his tracks. He kept his features under control, yet the slight quiver in his hand was betraying his unease.

“What is this?” his question was plainly rhetorical.

Without even peering over her shoulder, she replied, “We need space.”

“We don’t need space,” he refuted. “What we need is unreserved honesty for us to sort this out.”

“Which is kind of a long shot when neither of us is convinced that we wronged the other,” she grimly interjected.

For a second or two, he closed his eyes in frustration, then argued, “Jin Ah, I was simply asking you to open up to me.”

Tilting her head a little to the side, she taunted him, “Seriously, Seo Jin. After your betrayal, how can you expect me to do that?”

When she did not hear him respond, she willed herself to move only to be halted by a threat she never expected to come out of his naturally kind lips.

“The instant you cross that threshold, we are over,” he warned her.

Tears viciously rolled down Jin Ah’s cheeks and she had to cover her mouth to stifle the convulsive gasps that were breaking out of her chest. She badly wanted to move, to bolt out of the house that had been her safe haven for the past year — and even those prior — but her feet startingly felt ten times heavier than it should have been.

Regardless, their bitter exchanges in the last hour were enough to make her fathom that she sadly overstayed her welcome.

“I have to go, Seo Jin,” were the only parting words she was able to whisper before she forced herself to walk out of their apartment without looking back.

A week passed for the chaos to calm down. Seo Jin was the first to reach out, calling her several times in spite of being directed to her voice mail over and over. He also tirelessly sent her messages on a daily basis.

_Jin Ah, pick up the phone please. I’m sorry._

_Are you just throwing it all away, Jin Ah? Please don’t. I’m sorry._

_Jin Ah, are you eating well? Please don’t skip meals. I’m sorry._

_I miss you, Jin Ah. Please come home. I’m sorry._

_Jin Ah, can I see you after work? Let’s sort this out please. I’m sorry._

_I love you, Jin Ah. I’m sorry._

She ignored all of his texts except for one.

_Jin Ah, can you at least allow me to give you your share from the deal? Please let me meet up with you so we can talk about us. I’m really, really sorry._

Although she was a hundred percent sure that she would regret it in the future, Jin Ah typed a curt reply prior to taking the SIM card out of her phone and stashing it inside her purse, ready to replace it with a fresh one.

_I don’t need it._

***

_January 2012_

Jin Ah clocked out past nine in the evening after rendering unpaid overtime again. It did not help that she joined the company during peak season because with all the other supervisors busy with their respective departments’ projects, training was provided rather haphazardly — not to mention, the unrealistic expectations from her colleagues incited by the news that the new manager came from one of the biggest IT conglomerates in Seoul (She actually came from a subsidiary company, but still.). So she proactively stayed behind business hours to speed up her learning curve.

When she arrived at her father’s ancestral residence, she saw an unfamiliar black van parked outside. A suspicious man was standing in front of it and was craning his neck from side to side, as if he was on the lookout. And when she passed by him, she felt that he had his eyes trained on her back, following her until she closed the gate. Her gut was telling her that something was amiss and all the alarms in her head peculiarly went off at the same time, triggering an ominous shiver that coursed from her scalp down to her toes. Nonetheless, she trudged the inclined concrete path leading to the main house.

A couple of feet away from the door, she noticed moving silhouettes through the curtains of the living room and heard a grunt or two that she recognized to be coming from her father. Without further ado, she fished her phone out of the inner pocket of her blazer and ran back to the gate.

Unfortunately, just as she opened the steel panels, the man who was waiting on the street blocked her path and seized her wrists to pin her hands behind her, causing the phone to slip from her fingers. With the other hand of the man immediately covering her mouth to smother her protests and calls for help, she was mercilessly shoved back to the house and was pushed down to the floor to lie flat on her stomach as soon as they reached the living room. Jin Ah gathered adequate strength to prop herself up, yet the goons were quick to grab her by the arms to lift her up and plaster a packing tape on her lips.

A few steps away from her was her father, his face grotesque from the all the blood gushing out of the cuts on his swollen features. He appeared to be unconscious and if it weren’t for the men who were likewise holding him up, he would have collapsed like a brutally beaten-up corpse on the wooden floor.

The sight drove Jin Ah to the precipice of madness. She was infuriated, she was terrified… she was at a loss. Her instinct was compelling her to squirm out of the clutches of her captors with the remaining energy in her and bolt out of the house. Then again, her prowess was nothing compared to the brawn of the men behind her, therefore she had no choice but to scream at the top of her lungs in an attempt to make her mangled cries heard by anyone nearby.

“Could you shut that bitch up?” a man lazily ordered with a menacing drawl that seemed to come from her left.

Her face automatically flung to the side in search of the owner of the voice and found him at once, sitting on one of the couches with a leg crossed over the other and fingers laced loosely beneath his chin. However, before she could even register his face in her mind, a huge fist went straight to her abdomen, causing her upper body to lurch forward and her knees to give up. The next thing she knew, a hand was tightly wounding through her hair and tugged at it to ensure that she witnessed what was about to unfold.

She saw the mobster boss — a middle-aged ahjussi clad in thick, black coat over a teal long-sleeved shirt and black pants, hair brushed back from the temples, eyes drowsy from whatever substance he was under the influence of, and nose as crooked as the businesses he was most likely dealing with — saunter towards her with a creepy and measured gait. He was cocking his head to the side as if he was mentally ticking off the various methods he could torture her. And by the way the corners of his mouth twitched upwards, she was positive that she was going to be subjected to the same doomed fate as her Dad’s.

The man stopped right in front of her and up close, Jin Ah noticed the translucent scars that tarnished his pallid skin, including an old stitch at the tail of his right eyebrow. His glare was a death sentence in itself and was enough to draw out a shudder from her, albeit his succeeding motion intensified the crippling fear in her tenfold.

Reaching inside the chest pocket of his shirt, he retrieved a pack of cigarettes and pulled a stick which was instantaneously lit by one of his minions. He took a long, leisured drag and puffed the smoke directly on her face, smirking as she almost choked on it.

“Yoon Sang Ki, you have to understand that we reminded you several times about your debts,” the man slurred without taking his calculating stare away from her. “We were very patient with you. We even gave you a second and a third chance to procure the cash you owed us. But you clearly did not heed our warning.”

He clicked his tongue against his palate in mocking disapproval before he continued, “Perhaps you prefer another form of caution since your brain can’t seem to comprehend the urgency of our demands.”

With a subtle nod from the man, one of the henchmen beside her yanked her jacket open and his rough fingers fumbled on the rest of the layers until he was able to unbutton the first two buttons of her blouse. The biting winter air licking her exposed skin — together with the horror that was creeping up from the pit of her belly to her throat — straightaway spurred a tremor that viciously shook her limbs, incapacitating her.

The boss glanced over his shoulder once, then flicked the ashes on the tip of the cigarette before swiftly stubbing it on the bare flesh of Jin Ah’s chest.

Eliciting a scream that can only be heard from animals writhing in agony, her face contorted as the burning sensation blasted a white-hot pain that nearly blinded her.

To her shock, the punishment did not end with just one strike. The man seared her skin again while she helplessly wailed, and in no time, the metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as her teeth involuntarily continued tearing onto her lower lip until everything around her faded into black.

***

_October 2012_

The applicant beside Jin Ah was summoned to the room by the end of the hall and she was left alone in the corridor. All the seats beside her were already vacated by the other candidates. Whether they were accepted or not, she would never know.

At least not until her own name was called.

“Miss Yoon Jin Ah?” a young male secretary — probably in his late-twenties — read her name from the folder in his hand.

She stood up and hurriedly smoothened out her skirt with her clammy hands, then said, “That’s me.”

The secretary turned towards her direction and gave her a polite smile before telling her, “Come on in, please.”

Taking a lungful of air, Jin Ah nodded and followed the man inside.

During the short journey from the waiting area to the conference room, all that ran through her mind was how important it was for her to be hired. Not that she missed the city life, but the compensation package she was getting from her work at the countryside was in no way competitive to the salary this company was offering based on what she heard from the grapevine.

Truth be told, she had already adjusted to the life away from the metropolis for her to choose to return to the chaos. Moreover, if she would take into account how convenient the past months were for her in terms of logistics and stress levels, she would have stuck with her current job.

Alas, with the interest of his father’s debt accumulating every month they were not able to settle the amount in full, she was in dire need of cash. Lots of it.

So when she found out that a rising IT company was looking for a new set of managers, she seized the opportunity and sent an application. She thought she was lucky since she did not wait too long for the Talent Acquisition Department to respond to her. They called her a day after and conducted the initial screening via phone, which was a process she easily aced.

A week later, they invited her to their Seoul office for a domain interview.

“Please have a seat, Miss Yoon,” the man advised her as he closed the door behind them. “Our CEO will join us shortly.”

“Thank you,” she mumbled as she sank on one of the plush chairs.

 _You got this, Jin Ah. You have to get this_ , she pondered to herself, her fingers absentmindedly inching upwards to her chest — right where small burn scars that shall forever blemish her skin hid beneath the fabric of her long-sleeved shirt. _Or else they’ll come after you and your father again._

It did not take a minute for the voice of the man who ushered her in to resonate in her ear again and consequently pull her out of her musings. She snapped to attention, hoping to leave a good impression on the company’s top man with her pleasant disposition only for her smile to fade the moment she stood face-to-face with him at last.

Although Jin Ah knew that the man was speaking again, none of the words he was uttering made any sense to her.

Right there and then, nothing in her world did.

“Miss Yoon, I would like to introduce you to my boss” — the secretary gestured towards the other man in the room, oblivious to the fact that upon the latter’s arrival, Jin Ah already turned as white as a sheet before them — “Mr. Goo Seo Jin.”


	13. Dog Days

_October 2012_

Who knew that watching ice melt in a glass of lemonade was interesting? Jin Ah surely didn’t. Well, not until she found herself sitting with her hands balling into fists and perched atop her knees in a conference room for what seemed like the most awkward final interview to ever happen in the history of mankind — or hers, at least.

Alone.

With Seo Jin.

Ever since his secretary took his leave, the silence between them stretched from seconds to minutes. There were no windows to turn to, so she had no choice but to keep her head down, staring at an imaginary spot on the black Mary Janes that she diligently shined the night before. She tried her best not to steal an upward glance for she was afraid that her face would betray her emotions once she locked gazes again with the only person in the world she was ever comfortable with.

 _Was_.

She had to repeat that to herself lest his presence made her forget.

“How are you, Jin Ah?” his question made her jump.

For a split-second, her brows furrowed as she swallowed the painful lump in her throat prior to answering, “I’m okay.”

Seo Jin nodded at the terse reply, then asked, “Would you like to meet outside —”

“I’m here for an interview” — she cut him off with a piercing glare — “sir. I would appreciate it if we could get it done and over with.”

“Right,” he mumbled, eyes blinking rapidly as if she ruthlessly hauled him back from a trance.

He fumbled with the folder in front of him, leaning back on his chair as he scanned through the enclosures. Fully aware that she was still warily regarding him, he pretended to be occupied, skimming through her credentials over and over until it no longer appeared to be convincing.

After clearing his throat once, he probed, “So you are applying for a project manager post, correct?”

The next fifteen minutes went past without further incidents, to Jin Ah’s relief. Seo Jin summoned his secretary again to hand over his notes and stepped out as soon as the latter came in to retrieve the files. Shortly afterwards, she was ushered out of the room and was requested to wait outside.

Although it was not an ideal interview from the get-go, her responses absolutely made her cringe when she began to recall everything that transpired in the last quarter of an hour so much so that the precise instant the door closed behind her, she badly wanted to run for it. Anyhow, the bus station was around the corner; therefore, if she dashed towards the elevator and out of the building pronto, she could catch the two o’clock trip back to Yangpyeong and save herself from the anxiety.

Much to her dismay, her stupid feet elected not to cooperate and led her back to the lounge at the end of the corridor instead.

The moment she sank on one of the chairs, she took her phone out of her blazer and started browsing for nearby companies with job openings. She wondered if perhaps she could do a walk-in application or something just so her trip to the city wouldn’t be utterly useless.

Besides, after that afternoon’s spectacle, how could she go home empty handed?

“Miss Yoon Jin Ah.”

The secretary called her from the door for the second time that day and she replied with significantly less enthusiasm than the first.

“That’s me.”

The gods might have been bored from where they were dwelling because as her gut told her earlier — a shameless hunch she persistently shoved to the back of her head — she passed and was bound to sign the contract in five.

Later that day, Jin Ah stared at the contact in her hand throughout the commute home, a sheet of paper that served as a constant reminder that in three weeks, she must pack her stuff and move back to the metro to begin working for her former paramour.

_Onboarding Schedule_

_1\. New Employee Orientation_   
_Day 1_   
_Wednesday, October 31, 2012_   
_10:00 am to 7:00 pm_   
_7th Floor Conference Room 3_

_Day 2_   
_Thursday, November 1, 2012_   
_10:00 am to 2:00 pm_   
_7th Floor Conference Room 3_

_2\. Meet and Greet with Managers/Quick Office Tour_   
_Thursday, November 1, 2012_   
_3:00 pm to 4:00 pm_   
_7th Floor Conference Room 1_

_3\. Submission and Completion of Employment Prerequisites_   
_Friday, November 2, 2020_   
_10:00 am to 7:00 pm_   
_6th Floor Human Resources_

_Congratulations again, Miss Yoon! We look forward to seeing you on the 31st_ , a text from the recruiter stated.

Resigned to her fate, Jin Ah only sighed for there was no way she could back out.

 _Who would want to work with their — in this case, for their — ex, right?_ she thought to herself, pouting at the fleeting images out the window. _But the package was just so damn good, it can allow me to pay the bills and the debts without having to beg for alms on the street._

An hour later, she was still chiding herself while trudging the inclined path leading to the street where they lived.

 _And the bonuses_ , she groaned inwardly in apparent defeat. _How does one turn down an offer that good?_

She was so distracted that she failed to notice the dark gray sedan parked in front of their house, as well as its owner who was leaning on the driver’s side with his hands digging deep into the pockets of his black semi-overfit coat, eyes cast downwards as he absentmindedly kept stubbing his feet against the concrete pavement.

At once, she halted on her tracks and weighed on her choices: fight, flight, or freeze. Of course, she ended up doing the third one.

How the handsome devil was actually in front of her home and not in the office during business hours, she would never understand. One of the perks of being a CEO, maybe?

From a distance, Jin Ah observed the clenching of Seo Jin’s jaw as he nervously gulped and by the way his brows knitted together, she knew something — or someone, for that matter — was on his mind.

And that somehow made them even.

Nonetheless, the instant she decided to turn around and wait at the small café by the corner until he left, sheets of rain poured all of a sudden, briefly stunning her. Uttering an expletive under her breath, she immediately rummaged her shoulder bag, hoping against hope that her foldable umbrella was stashed in there somewhere. It was quite unnecessary though because he was beside her in a heartbeat, brandishing his own like a sword and holding it steady for the two of them.

 _Why must the rain always bring us together, Goo Seo Jin?_ she grumbled inside her head.

As if on reflex, she looked up and sought for his face. Lo and behold, he was already gazing down to behold hers with the same worried expression that greeted her at the conference room back in their office in Seoul.

“Uhmmm... Jin Ah, I...” he faltered. “Can we go inside for a minute? The rain doesn’t seem to be stopping any time soon.”

“What for?” she countered flatly as her fingers seized the hem of her damp jacket to wrap it tighter around her body. “Go home before the weather gets bad, Goo Seo Jin. Goodbye.”

With the intention of bolting towards their gate through the downpour, she took a step to the side. Yet, he swiftly tugged at her wrist to pull her back into the shelter of his golf umbrella.

“Jin Ah, let’s talk. Please,” he quietly implored her.

“What for?” she repeated. “We’re done with the interview.”

A wince broke her stoic expression — peeking so quickly that he assumed it might as well be a figment of his imagination — then she added, “Sir.”

He heaved a labored breath, expelling a copious amount of air through his lower lip until it caused his fringe to dance over his forehead. He held her stubborn eyes with a matching resolve, refusing to take no for an answer.

Ultimately, she yielded to him with a scowl.

“Fine,” she spat, voice trembling from the tension escalating between them. “But we have to go somewhere else since the house is a mess.”

They sat face-to-face on one of the couches of the cozy neighborhood coffee shop shortly after, engaged in a staring game that neither of them was willing to partake. The cappuccino she ordered a while ago had already cooled down and his cup had been refilled twice; in their midst, the two servings of BLT sandwiches remained untouched.

No longer able to stand the unnerving quietude, Seo Jin reluctantly broke the ice.

“I heard you accepted our offer,” he casually told her. “Congratulations.”

Jin Ah slowly nodded, pursing her lips together before saying, “Thank you, Goo daepyo. Although I doubt that you came here all the way from Seoul to simply extend your felicitations to a newly-hired manager.”

He took a sip of his black coffee, then acknowledged her cutting remark with a smirk that lacked any trace of amusement.

“It has been a year, Jin Ah. Are you still angry at me?” he dared to ask.

She wanted to admit that she had let go of the ill feelings she harbored towards him and the universe a long time ago, that she forgave him for the accusations he hurled at her, that there were evenings when she missed him so much that once or twice, she cried herself to sleep (The most recent episode happened a month ago when she chanced upon one of their photographs from college by accident.) and woke up with a really bad headache the following day, as if she spent the previous night finishing ten rounds of soju bombs by herself.

Regardless, like he mentioned, it had been a year. A lot of things changed in those twelve months apart for sure and — frankly speaking — she did not have the courage to find out how his life went on without her in it. Thus, she kept her reply safe and curt, just like how her responses would have to be moving forward.

“Not anymore,” she exhaled. “However, talking about our unresolved issues makes me uneasy. I’m sorry.”

“I understand. I apologize for putting you on the spot,” he offered. “And I am relieved to know you do not hate me anymore. Thank you, Jin Ah.”

She dryly chortled and commented, “With everything I have to deal with, I do not believe hatred would do me any good.”

Another moment went past with both of them barely exchanging polite smiles that appeared queasy, fidgeting on their beverages or the neglected bagels sitting between them on the table. It was not at all pleasing, yet it was probably better than scratching wounds that should be left alone healing.

There would be a right time to discuss the past and it was not that afternoon — and he knew it. Most importantly, he had to respect it.

“I am so sorry,” Seo Jin somberly expressed his apologies after a while. “Hurting you that evening remains to be the biggest regret of my life, Jin Ah.”

“Seo Jin, we were both young and hurt. Let bygones be bygones,” Jin Ah shrugged. “We have to do that if we will be working together from here forward.”

“If you must know, I am in dire need of this kind of opportunity,” she cautiously explained to emphasize her stance. “We are caught up in so many debts —”

Dumbstruck, he looked incensed as he blurted out, “Wait— what debts?”

She forced out a chuckle and shook her head, then waved her hand to dismiss further discussions.

“My dad owed a huge amount of money to certain men because of excessive gambling and some” — her expression twisted into a fleeting grimace — “vices. We’re sort of behind schedule and what I am getting from my current job clearly won’t be enough to cover for the balance, the growing interest, and other living expenses.”

It took all of Seo Jin’s patience to bite back the swearword that he was itching to hiss and he had no other option than to divert all his wrathful energies to his fists, which were luckily hidden underneath the table, to a point wherein he was already oblivious to the sensations of his nails digging into the flesh of his palms. At the very least, he was disappointed; he can still remember from his last conversation with Yoon Sang Ki after the old man returned the money he owed him that everything had been settled, and that the mob would stop chasing him or Jin Ah. Understanding that it was likely another set of debts from a different group of loan sharks did not require rocket science.

“He went on a downward spiral after Mom died and never recovered,” she continued, pulling him out of his dismal reverie.

“Isn’t your father helping you out?” he inquired, irritation mildly coloring his tone.

“Unfortunately, he is unemployed,” she answered. “I can only wish he could get a job or something, though I am really not holding my breath since he has not recovered from his injuries yet.”

“What happened?”

“He was beat up to a pulp and was in a coma for quite a while. Sadly, I haven’t paid half the money I owed some friends and relatives for his hospital bills — and that’s on top of everything in my long list of accountabilities.”

“I... I’m sorry to hear that.”

Jin Ah nodded once, then downed the rest of her coffee.

For a second, Seo Jin hesitated before advising her, “I still have your share from the deal I closed with Ha Neul. I can transfer it to your account right away.”

Her curious eyes lifted in an instant and the look of sheer disbelief was abruptly all over her face.

“You mean, you did not use it to set up your company?” her thoughts slipped tactlessly out of her mouth before she could help herself.

He crinkled his nose at her and confirmed, “I did not. My mentor retired and invited me to establish an IT-services company. We pooled our savings, met investors. When it became fully-operational, he asked me to be at the helm.”

“Oh... okay,” she muttered. “I... I was under the assumption that you did. I apologize.”

“No worries. If you could send me your details…”

“I have the same bank account number.”

“Ahhh... I actually changed mine. So, I...” he trailed off, then pulled his phone from the pocket of his blazer, unlocking the device before giving it to her. “Would you enter the details for me, please?”

Surprised, Jin Ah accepted it and likewise fished hers out of her jacket. She was about to check her account number on her own bank application when the home screen wallpaper of his phone caught her attention.

It was him, standing in the middle of a wooden trail in a park (Or, was it a mountain?) with a girl she did not recognize. The stranger was attractive — ash blond hair cascading into waves down her petite face, long and slender legs, doll-like features — even when she looked a bit deglamorized after presumably a couple of hours of trekking.

Seo Jin, on the other hand, was sporting his trademark boyish smirk that flaunted his dimples. He was blushing (Possibly due to his exertions, she guessed.) and his arm was leisurely wrapped around the woman’s waist. In spite of his disheveled state, his charm made her heart skip a beat all the same out of giddiness and longing.

“Have you found the app?” she heard him ask. “It’s in one of those folders. Let me—”

“I got it,” she told him, then proceeded to key in the digits of her savings account, acting as if nothing punctured her chest a minute ago.

It was almost sunset when the rain ceased from falling and they decided to part ways. They traced their steps back to her house side-by-side, the silence between them a little less burdensome after finally breathing out those few words of apology and forgiveness.

“Thank you,” Jin Ah said upon reaching their driveway.

“Anytime,” Seo Jin murmured. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise.”

“I guess I’ll see you next month, then.”

“I’ll see you next month,” she echoed. “Sir.”

“Will you drop the formalities, Jin Ah?” he pleaded with a tiny smile.

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Save it for the office hours, please.”

She chewed on her lip for a bit, then permitted her shoulders to fall as she bared to him her qualms.

“Seo Jin, I would rather have our past be kept as a secret,” she appealed to him. “Let’s put it behind us, okay? I... I have moved on and you obviously have done the same thing.”

Confusion shrouded his face and he stammered, “W-what do you mean?”

“I think it is best for us to pretend as if we do not know each other.”

“Why?”

Jin Ah’s hand automatically flew to her neck, fingers clasping the collar of her shirt, while a free arm hugged her torso.

She was frightened of many possibilities: of being judged by the people around her at work, of caving into the lingering emotions spurred by his mere presence, of letting herself be vulnerable again. He was her trusted friend, her constant ally, and her only family; his love was her refuge, her strength, and her downfall. Being in the same room with him for a short period of time stirred feelings she painstakingly strove to suppress in order to survive. Pray tell, what could happen to her if she invited him back into her life?

Nevertheless, she was wise enough to discern that it was inessential for him to be cognizant of all these fears. She might be fragile because it stung to confirm for herself that she was already out of the picture, yes, but she was not a selfish person to consider interrupting the kind of peace he was enjoying in the present.

“Things will be convenient for me if I could start with a clean slate,” was the abridged answer she opted to give him. “I prefer it to be that way.”

Taken aback, Seo Jin failed to bridle the frustration that was threatening to manifest on his face. He was not expecting for their reconciliation to come easy; heck, he was not even wishing for them to get back together after all the hurt he caused her. And, given the situation he was in, it was neither fair to her nor her girlfriend for him to entertain such an idea. Yet, to be honest, he also did not anticipate that she would reject being his acquaintance.

Then again, he was able to fathom in the limited responses she provided him that the set-up was in itself tricky. To complicate it further for the time being was pretty much unnecessary and was a step towards the wrong direction if he truly intended to foster something that resembled friendship between him and his old flame.

“Alright,” Seo Jin conceded to her demand begrudgingly. “Clean slate it is.”

Hearing that catchphrase of his after what seemed like an eternity brought some solace to Jin Ah as it was an unlikely assurance that despite being in different worlds, living different lives, some things about the Seo Jin she absolutely and irrevocably fell in love with when she was twenty never changed.

A realization as inconsequential as that brought a genuine, but melancholic smile on her lips.

“Drive safe, Seo Jin,” Jin Ah reminded him before turning on her heel and closing the gate behind her, compelling herself to direct her gaze towards the front doors of the house in order to hinder herself from stealing a final glance over her shoulder and contemplate on the notion that maybe — just maybe — they still merited another shot at a happy ending.


	14. Time and Tide Wait For No One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains scenes which may not be suitable for young readers. Please proceed with caution.

Eight years’ worth of emotions washed over them over the course of a few hours. Sad truths, unwarranted yearning, subdued qualms, bitter regrets — all of these fought for resurgence as they unraveled the layers that they individually put up around them in that period of being apart.

Finally, with their well-kept secrets revealed and their previously unspoken sentiments breathed out, closure should have been in order. Ironically though, the talk that was almost behind schedule only opened a window they never thought was in their midst — or simply chose to neglect.

Jin Ah, who had been shedding tears in the past sixty minutes or so, knew about it; and it was impossible for Seo Jin, who had been holding her steady while she broke down, not to be aware of that realization too.

Noticing how hoarse her voice became over time, he gently withdrew his arm which was draped around her shoulders and said, “I will get you some water. Stay here.”

She shook her head at once and held his wrist, wordlessly asking him not to go.

“Jin Ah, your throat is already parched from crying,” he informed her in case the overwhelming surge of feelings made her oblivious to it. “I don’t want you to get sick or anything.”

She gulped before assuring him, “I’m okay.”

“No, you’re not, baby,” he argued. “Both of us are not.”

She dabbed at her damp cheeks with her knuckles, then firmly demanded, “Be back soon.”

That prompted a tiny, yet comforting smile to break through the worried expression he was wearing.

“I will,” he told her in a sweet whisper, then leaned down to steal a peck on her forehead. “Wait for me.”

Of course, he was right; she was as thirsty as a lost vagabond in the middle of a drought. It was good thinking from his end to bring a pitcher of water instead of just a glass.

When she was done with her third serving, he retrieved the crystal goblet from her and wiped the corners of her mouth with the back of his hand. The gesture caused her heart to wrench, but she beamed at him nonetheless.

He rejoined her on the bed shortly after and together, they reclined on the headboard and stared vaguely ahead, lost in their respective thoughts. While it would have been nice to feel her snuggle against him, he was contented to be sitting closely beside her in companionable silence. She was obviously more at ease with the proximity, although the way she curled up and hugged her knees was still manifesting her reservations.

“For what it’s worth, I truly am sorry,” he sighed.

“I am, too,” she murmured without lifting her head from her forearms. “I am sorry for what happened to us, for the hurtful words we threw at each other, for the promises we were not able to keep.”

“And I am sorry for the years we lost,” he added, his tone muted and grave. “I should not have dared you to go that night. I should have chased after you, Jin Ah. I… I should have begged until you came home…”

Pain etched on his features as he continued to grumble, “It’s my fault. I should not have given up on us that easily.”

“Then again, I should not have walked away in the first place,” she countered with a tinge of resentment towards herself. “I should have decided to work with you for us to sort things out.”

Spurred by the vestigial courage in her, she turned towards him and admitted, “I should have chosen you.”

Seo Jin shifted to kneel by her side, then with both hands, he cradled her face and willed her to look at him.

As he ran calming circles over the hollows of her cheeks with his thumb, he swore to her, “I will always choose you, I promise. From now on, I will choose you over and over, every waking day. Even if your struggles compel you to push me away, I will stick around. I won’t give up until I become enough for you… for us.”

Albeit halfheartedly, Jin Ah smiled at him and her eyes curved up into gleaming crescents as a fresh wave of tears brimmed in them.

“I cannot believe how a genius like you still fail to understand,” she scoffed teasingly.

His response was to tilt his head to the side, brows furrowed in sheer confusion.

“Hold on — you really don’t get it, do you?”

He crinkled his nose at her and shook his head.

She chuckled at his candor and told him, “You don’t have to be enough for us, Seo Jin. Before anything else, I have to be enough for myself.”

A pregnant pause ensued as they allowed those words to sink in. As a result, his resolve wavered with every moment that went past, palms sliding down from either side of her face until she caught them with hers. She gazed up at him with a tender longing that reflected his own, seeking for a sign confirming that he absorbed what she was trying to explain to no avail.

“It’s a shame that my affections for you never seemed to change. Not even one bit,” she confessed in a patient voice that was so soft, he assumed he was merely imagining it. “But this time, I wish to love you with every mended piece of me.”

She pursed her lips, hesitating at the last minute, then said, “I am leaving for Australia next month. I found a job in Sydney.”

“Oh… uhmmm… okay. Okay,” he stammered. “When are you coming back?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“What!? Why?”

“My Dad’s debts have been settled now, so —”

“All the more you should stay, right? I mean, the company pays well and I made sure your compensation package was competitive per current market standards.”

It was one of the very few instances that Seo Jin scrambled for a solid argument, desperately searching for some sort of leverage that could change her mind.

Nevertheless, Jin Ah was not supposed to let him succeed, so she thwarted his further contentions by swooping in and kissing him squarely on the mouth.

Her stealthy move caught him defenseless. His head suddenly ceased to function along with the rest of his body, except for his heart which was already bursting at the seams from the varying intensities of sorrow, joy, optimism, and uncertainty. He simply sat there, stunned — unable to reciprocate nor object as she pressed her lips lightly onto his.

She broke the spell that bound them shortly after, wet lashes fluttering as she blinked her tears away.

“It's an opportunity to start over,” Jin Ah mumbled as she sought to convince him with those familiar nudges of their nose tips. “A chance to reset my life, rebuild a dream that is my own, rediscover who I am.”

“And nothing can stop me from taking it,” she told him with a firm resolve. “Not even these dormant feelings you have rekindled inside me.”

Knowing that she made a valid point, he only bit back his protests and asked, “What about me?”

“You’ll be fine —”

“What about us?”

“We’ll get by.”

“No, we won’t — especially not after tonight.”

She opened her mouth to say something, yet she closed it just as quickly.

Her indecision was not lost on Seo Jin, therefore he made one final stab at making her reconsider.

“I’m not going to let you go again,” he said with a finality in his tone while his smoldering coffee-colored irises penetrated hers, tearing down her crumbling façade. “Stay with me, Jin Ah. Please stay.”

Truth be told, she was one touch away from saying ‘yes’,

Regardless, she exorcised the idea of them getting back together out of her stream of consciousness and reprimanded herself for almost falling back to her old habits. If she were to take that elusive second shot with him, she was not going to be the hapless soul that awaited redemption anymore. She played the part before and they both knew how it turned out in the end.

“For me to do that, you would have to let me go,” she pleaded with a wistful smile that shattered his heart into a million pieces.

Frustration was beginning to test the immensity of Seo Jin’s patience, so he closed his eyes and urged himself to comprehend what she trying to say. Was she expecting him to wait? Was she telling him to forget about her? Was she asking him to move on?

Out of the blue, he felt her forehead rest upon his and the contact somehow brought him a much-needed calm.

Releasing her clutch on his hands to wound her arms around his neck, she joshed him, “You are overthinking again.”

“Only because you confuse me.”

“Do I?”

“What do you think?”

She stifled a hearty laugh and miserably failed, earning a scowl from him in return. At once, she amended this by drawing him into her embrace.

“I like confusing you,” she shyly breathed against his neck. “I can do it forever without getting tired of it.”

He snorted, then told her, “Glad I amused — wait, what?’

“What?”

“What did you just say?”

When she did not answer, Seo Jin held her by the shoulders and carefully eased her away from him, keeping her at arm’s distance to raise a quizzical brow at her.

She reached for his hand once more and molded his palm over her cheek, leaning on its warmth as she spoke, “Seo Jin, listen to me. The reason why I cannot commit to you right now is because I don’t want you to put your life on hold while I work on my issues.”

“Jin Ah, I…” he heaved out a labored breath. “Do you really have to go? Can’t I come with you?”

“And scratch out your plans?”

“I can always go back to square one.”

“No way.”

“What if I lose you again?”

“Goo Seo Jin,” she stated his name like a warning.

Defeated, he permitted his shoulders to fall as he acquiesced to her bidding with a reluctant nod.

“Have a little faith in me,” she appealed to him with those doe eyes. “I will return relieved of my excess baggage sooner than you think. If you are still free, then perhaps we can try again.”

He sighed, then said, “And there will be no missed chances and bad timings from that point forward.”

“Not anymore,” she agreed.

A conflicted expression shadowed Seo Jin’s face for a second and Jin Ah automatically brought her thumb to that crease on his forehead.

“Care to tell me what’s going through that brilliant brain of yours?” she probed as she smoothened the knit between his eyebrows.

He gulped once, then with a quiver breaking his smooth baritone, he plucked up the nerve to remind her, “You promised me tonight.”

“I did.”

“And that you would allow me to make the most out of it.”

“Yes.”

He took a deep breath and, throwing caution to the wind, brushed his lips ever so lightly over the moist trail on her cheek, the supple folds of her mouth, the contour of her jaw, and the sensitive spot beneath her ear.

“Then, can you give me something to hold on to?” he challenged her with a feverish stare that could straightaway enslave her in an infinite cycle of atonement and sin.

With bated breath, she asked, “Like what?”

“Like this.”

Without delay, he captured her lips in a kiss that intended to consume her entire being, inciting a blaze that scorched her from head to toe. It was unrestrained, whisking her in a whirlwind of emotions that obliterated all logic that was keeping them bound to their reality. Their eyes closed as the initial waves of pleasure excited them while their mouths crushed against each other in a clumsy rhythm that evolved into a synchronized dance of tongues in no time.

And even though her lungs were at the brink of collapsing, she resisted to part from him. Instead, she taught herself to breathe through her nose in choppy intervals, taking advantage of those brief moments wherein she had to slow down and be conquered. And every instance he fell into the pit of complacency, she would turn the tables and vanquish him, forcing him to capitulate to her equally urgent tempo.

He was the first to surrender, begrudgingly tearing his lips away from hers to gasp for air. He willed himself to focus on her face as he sought to phrase his earnest request for her permission to take that crucial step forward and cross the line they drew between them several years ago, yet his lust was already shrouding his mind and was hindering him from forming a coherent statement.

Tearing through the haze of desire that was likewise confounding her, Jin Ah had to blink thrice before successfully figuring out the proposition that somehow got caught in the chaos that wreaked havoc in his brain.

With a nervous giggle, she replied, “Yes, you may make love to me.”

Caring as usual, Seo Jin regarded her with hawk-like attention to ensure that she was indeed comfortable in engaging in this form of intimacy with him. While his deft fingers ghosted the hem of the oversized shirt she borrowed from him, he refused to pull it over her head until she gave that tiny nod of approval. And when she did, every inch of her body tingled in anticipation of what was to come.

However, just as she expected him to proceed with their amorous play, he stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Jin Ah asked, nearly fretting.

It was needless for him to answer; she only had to follow the direction of his gaze to fathom what took him aback.

“Seo Jin, that’s —”

In a heartbeat, his fingers were tracing two circular scars on her chest: a small one at the center and a more pronounced mark right above the swell of her left bosom.

She warily watched him as he gently ran the pad of his thumb over the blemishes and tried to decipher the strange look on his face. To her, his frown was a telltale sign of sadness, but the tightening of his jaw was conveying an anger that was desperately being restrained.

And his eyes — one second, they were drowning in misery and the next, they were fuming with a rage she had never seen in him before.

The instant she realized what was happening, she caged his face in her small hands to tear his focus away from those ugly mementos of her past.

“Hey, baby. Look at me,” she coached him with concern ringing in each word. “It was not your fault, okay? This was not your own doing.”

He swallowed the painful lump in his throat and then — for the first time ever since that fateful morning of their college admission test in 2004 — he cried.

“I’m sorry…” he uttered through the muted sobs that persistently erupted from his chest. “I’m so sorry, Jin Ah.”

“Oh god, baby. No, please…” the sight of him suffering brought her on the verge of tears again. “It was not you who did this to me. Please don’t apologize.”

“If we are going to give us another chance, then you have to understand that you don’t have to save me everytime, Seo Jin. And even if you have to, it should not be at the expense of our faith in each other.”

“You see, that was one of our mistakes,” she told him. “Just because you wanted to spare me from that hurtful truth about my dad, you broke my trust. Let's not do that again, alright?”

Although he nodded in acknowledgment, he continued to quietly weep in front of her and she simply let him.

When the tremors subsided, she wiped his tears with the back of her fingers and teased him, “My goodness! I can’t believe that the person I am giving my virginity to is a crybaby.”

He stared up at her and stuttered, “What?”

“You heard me,” she shrugged in an attempt to sound casual.

In spite of the current situation, he rolled his eyes at her and said, “Yoon Jin Ah.”

She dramatically sighed, then in one swift motion, she unclasped the front hooks of her bra. Leisurely, she pulled the straps down her shoulders and discarded the lacy underwear, leaving her chest bare for his viewing.

Reaching up again to weave her fingers in his hair, she pulled him closer to rub their noses together as she whispered, “I have always loved you, Goo Seo Jin, and no one else will ever come close.”

Then, she feathered kisses on his jaw, her lashes beating frantically against his skin as she concluded her old promise, “Not now. Not ever.”

That was his cue to take over. He shed off his garments as she lounged in front of him, and when he was through, he crawled back into her arms.

With delicate motions, he guided her to lie on her back with him hovering over her naked torso. He claimed her mouth once more while his hand ventured lower, nimble fingers slipping inside the cotton boxers that covered her modesty to spark a fire he would enflame over and over until she begged for respite.

At the height of her frenzy, Seo Jin abruptly removed his lips from hers. She groaned in disapproval and he pulled down her underwear altogether and quickened his ministrations to compensate for his mischief.

Jin Ah heard herself draw out a guttural sound from her throat that seemed all foreign to her, just like the peculiar undulation of her body as it responded to his touch. Her waist was shamelessly grinding against his palm, moving as if it had a life of its own, yet the delightful sensation from the pressure and friction was worth every bit of the disgrace. She relished it — propriety be damned.

“Seo Jin…” she purred, and with whatever strength remained in her limbs, she fumbled for his hand, unfurling his index and middle fingers before leading it to where she was aching to be caressed.

The intrusion made her gasp and she had to bite her lip to restrain a moan that nearly escaped her mouth. It had been so long since she was fondled down there that she forgot how being touched in that promiscuous manner felt like. Even during those moments of solitude in her bathroom, she was never brazen enough to mimic the way he pleasured her with his digits, which was probably why the carnal ecstacy provided by his present preambles seemed to be twice as intense as she expected it to be.

“Seo Jin…”

“Yes, baby?”

“There… yes. Harder. Please...”

From Seo Jin’s vantage point, she was a writhing mess under him: her left hand was grabbing the pillow while her right was seizing the sheets, dark brown tresses were wildly splayed around her head, and a sheen of sweat was misting the top of her nose. He loved how her lids drooped tantalizingly with every shiver and he took it as a sign to descend the trail going to her nether folds with wet kisses. And when he arrived at his destination, his free hand traveled the expanse of her torso and tugged at her chin, emancipating that swollen lip from her teeth.

He slid his palm down to her breast and firmly kneaded it, biding his time to tease a pebbling nipple with his fingers until she was almost pleading for his mercy. He indulged her by simultaneously pinching the taut peak and flicking his tongue repeatedly against that titillated nub hidden between her thighs. At once, a keening noise originating from the hollows of her gut reverberated in the four corners of his room.

He missed everything about her. He missed the scent of vanilla emanating from her skin, the feel of her supple flesh against his lean body, the sight of her lost and dazed in her wanton trance, the shrill whimpers from her relentless dash towards the decadent abyss, and the taste of her arousal coming from the blinding rapture that consumed her.

By some bizarre miracle, everything he missed in those years of being apart was once again exclusively his.

“Seo Jin…”

“I’m here.”

When he was certain that the waves of pleasure had ebbed away, he searched for her mouth again, tongues entwining to meld their individual essences.

“Seo Jin…”

“Hold on, baby —”

“I want all of you. Please…”

He intoxicated her with his kisses and the minute she was totally distracted, he moved to unite their bodies in the most intimate manner possible.

She winced at the exact instant he sheathed himself in her pulsing core and he waited for her to become accustomed to the feeling of being filled before he began to rouse the flames again — slowly at first, then picking up the pace to gain that exhilarating momentum. It felt so perfect that he silently offered a prayer to the heavens in gratitude and in plea for more.

From then on, a disconcerted sensual rhapsody filled the air: a collective melody of low grunts and sultry moans combined with a hushed medley of ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m sorry’ that eventually led to a punctuated cry of their shared bliss.

As she descended from her temporary high, it fascinated Jin Ah how their coupling caused her a searing pain that transformed into restlessness, which gradually brought her an inexplicable sense of thrill, euphoria, and gratification, then ultimately bequeathing her with a unique form of serenity she only experienced whenever he was around.

Above all, she marveled at how after eight long years, he was actually there with her, cradling her vulnerable form in his sinewy arms as they endured those momentous seconds of falling apart.

He collapsed on top of her heaving chest, thoroughly spent from their tryst, and their slick limbs were still tangled up on the sheets while they both struggled for air and waited for their racing heartbeats to normalize.

Staring up at the ceiling, Jin Ah blurted out minutes later, “So that’s what the hype is all about.”

As always, her witty remark elicited a crisp laugh from Seo Jin.

“Please tell me you liked it,” he murmured against the damp skin of her neck.

“Oh, I did,” she replied with a chuckle. “You?”

Without warning, Seo Jin rolled sideways to lie on his back, taking her along with him so that she was draped on top of his body like a blanket.

“I loved it,” he answered through the boyish smirk that was playing on his lips. “And I love you.”

That was all it took for Jin Ah to break into a genuine, radiant smile.

“Goodnight, my Goo Seo Jin,” she told him before kissing him softly on the lips.

Seo Jin woke up a couple of hours later. As if on reflex, he fumbled on the space beside him to seek for his paramour, ready to wound his arm around her waist and pull her flush against him — only to recall their agreement from the evening before.

Unwillingly, he opened his eyes to see for himself that the bed was once again empty. On his left were the pillows that still carried the fragrance of her hair while at the right foot corner of the mattress were the clothes he loaned to her, neatly folded and stacked.

True to her word, Jin Ah departed at daybreak and left nothing behind to remind him of that unforgettable night filled with memories of a raging thunderstorm, a romantic rooftop dinner, a pile of reprinted photographs, a consummation of passion, and a long-overdue closure.

Maybe it was for the best that she left him with nothing.

Except for that one lucky paper star sitting on top of his side table.


	15. Lightning Never Strikes the Same Place Twice

Four sets of curious eyes were staring right back at Jin Ah Yoon, and she could not help but snort at the absurdity of the scene. It was still half-an-hour before the clock struck five in the afternoon and she wondered how her friends of three years — two ladies her age, a fashionable queer man of twenty-five, and their female supervisor — could afford to stand a solid minute around her cubicle when they were pressed for a deadline, waiting for a confirmation she already gave twice: first, early in the morning when they were getting coffee at the ground floor café and second, over lunch at the pantry.

Nonetheless, she just shook her head and shifted her attention back to the monitor in front of her.

“Come on, mates. I am not bailing out,” she casually assured them as she proceeded to complete her reports. “Let’s go back to regular programming, shall we?”

Their cool boss named Tanya — a woman ten years older than her who sported a platinum blonde pixie cut and a dapper white and black ensemble with matching killer heels — chimed in, “You told us the same thing last time and you pulled off a Harry.”

“Nope, I did not. I was under the weather that day,” Jin Ah rectified her superior’s statement. “I even called in sick the evening before.”

“If you are really coming with us, then why aren’t you dressed for a Friday ladies night-out?” the only guy in their clique argued as he raised a challenging brow at her, one of his Oxford-clad feet tapping loudly on the floor. For the record, he had been grilling her since breaktime on how her selection of stonewashed jeans, oversized flannel shirt, and trusted white Chuck Taylors were not fit for the occasion.

Jin Ah snickered at her friend’s keenness to details when it came to her clothing choices (She found it absolutely adorable.) and reasoned out, “I plan to go home and change first, Hector. Don’t fret too much, okay?”

“I’m coming with her,” one of the two girls volunteered straightaway.

“Me too!” the other lady stated to second the motion, raising a hand for full effect.

Bewildered, Jin Ah stopped typing and stared back at them instead with a dumbfounded expression on her face, her jaw carelessly dropping and mouth forming an O.

“I can’t believe this!” she exclaimed, then crossed her arms on her chest. “Kate, Jess… how could you not trust me —”

“Right!” Tanya immediately quipped at the women with a crisp snap of her fingers. “Keep us posted on your whereabouts later.”

Like obedient subordinates that reminded Jin Ah of those newly enlisted boys back home, Kate and Jess nodded their heads in flawless synchronization before the company of four dispersed and walked back to their respective desks.

True to their word, the dynamic duo went with her to her rented unit a few blocks away from the office.

“Give me thirty minutes. I’ll just go ahead and change, do some retouch — the works. Feel free to watch TV while waiting for me,” Jin Ah offered as she led her guests to the coffee-colored couch in her small living room. “Oh, and there’s water and orange juice on the fridge if you’re thirsty.”

“Thirty minutes?” Kate complained after plopping down on the sofa, the soft fabric of her floral skirt billowing around her as she moved.

Throwing a sideway glance at her colleague, Jin Ah thought aloud, “Unless you would like to hear Hector’s litany throughout the night, then —”

“Go! Take all the time that you need, honey,” Jess interjected at once with a shooing gesture. “We’ll be right here.”

Jin Ah half-sighed and half-scoffed, then headed towards her bedroom with the corners of her lips turning up into a smug smile.

On the dot, she reemerged from the room wearing a sexy, black dress with a low neckline under a fitted ivory coat, her voluminous hair cascading down her face in waves. And though she had very little make-up on, she made sure that her fiery red lipstick was a showstopper.

By the way Kate mouthed a ‘wow’, she proved that her color of choice definitely was.

Equally stunned, Jess commented, “Who are you and what have you done to our Jin Ah Yoon?”

“Gone for the evening, I guess,” Jin Ah timidly replied.

“Or more like she bravely stepped out of her shell,” Kate corrected her. “Let’s go. A fun night is ahead of us, fabulous ladies.”

“Wait!” Jess screeched before Kate could even rise to her feet. “I have to freshen up, too.”

“By all means,” Jin Ah said, giggling. “The bathroom is inside.”

“Nice! Thanks, Jin Ah,” Jess told her as she stood up and headed straight to Jin Ah’s bedroom, her fingers already fidgeting with the stray mahogany wisps of her bob cut.

Kate quickly followed suit after giving Jin Ah a wink and saying, “Fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes it is,” Jin Ah murmured as she sat on the couch, crossing a leg over the other as she did a cursory check on the items inside her leather pouch.

Just as she snapped it shut, her phone buzzed on her lap and her eyes turned up into lovely crescent moons when she read the name of the caller.

***

_November 2021_

“Jin Ah?”

The sound of her name took Jin Ah back to the bright room, her focus wandering around the white walls for a while before zeroing in on the woman in front of her.

To gain a bit of composure from her momentary stupor, she squeezed her eyes shut for a couple of seconds then asked, “What was that again, doctor? I’m sorry I zoned out.”

“That’s alright,” her psychologist — a certain Dr. Mina Park-Bronson — appeased her, slowly nodding. “We were talking about the last time you spoke with your father.”

“Oh. Right, right,” Jin Ah mumbled as she tried to recall where she trailed off. “My father.”

“Last week, I think,” she proceeded to tell the doctor. “I believe he is doing well now. Managing the store keeps his mind occupied and away from those grim thoughts.”

Dr. Park-Bronson sat up straight to lean in, fingers laced together and perched on top of her knees as she probed, “Would you know what bothers him?”

“Guilt, most probably. Even when I told him to leave the past behind the day before I left, I can see how it persists to consume him,” Jin Ah admitted with a frown. “He still avoids my gaze whenever we have video calls.”

“I see.”

“I suppose he is also sorry about what transpired between him and my mother.”

“How so?”

A knot formed between Jin Ah’s brows as she contemplated on her subsequent statements.

“It only occurred to me that his addictions began years before my mother had an affair,” she confessed. “Recently, I remembered one incident when I overheard my aunt and mother in deep conversation downstairs hours past bedtime. I was around five or six — although I might be wrong with the timeline.”

“My aunt asked my mother how long my father has been into gambling and drugs, and Mom supposed that the problem has been going on for seven years — which was basically the entire duration of their marriage at that point,” she continued to confide in her psychologist. “She said that they actually fought about it on the eve of their marriage ceremony, yet she decided to push through with the wedding because Dad promised to quit.”

“And I guess he didn’t.”

“Well… tough luck for someone who assumed that going cold turkey is the best way to rehabilitate oneself.”

“Have you confirmed this with your Dad — or your aunt, at least?”

“I did verify with my aunt. And sadly, it was true,” Jin Ah admitted, disappointment ringing in her voice. “Although, of course, it does not justify the fact that my Mom had an affair — with a man who was someone else’s husband and father, no less.”

A moment of stillness burdened the room shortly after.

“Now that you’ve mentioned it,” — Dr. Park-Bronson’s words were measured — “have you dreamt of your mother as of late?”

Jin Ah paused for a while, jaw slightly clenching as she rummaged her weary brain for an answer.

“Thrice over the past month,” she told the doctor.

“Did she threaten you again in your dreams?”

“In the most recent one, yes. The other two were just random scenes of her doing household chores in the kitchen and at the backyard as she tended to her orchids.”

“Did she taunt you as usual?”

“Same old, same old.”

“And how did you feel when you woke up?”

“Same old, same old,” Jin Ah repeated through a burdened exhale. “I was a mess for a minute, but I was able to recover.”

Dr. Park-Bronson clasped her hands together, then remarked, “That’s another feat, Jin Ah. Can you tell me what worked this time?”

“I revisited those memories of my mother driving to school one morning to bring the lunchbox she prepared for me — which I deliberately neglected,” Jin Ah replied, her stoic features shrouded by a shadow of shame.

Defeated, she buried her face in her hands, then slid her palms down to latch her fingers on either side of her neck as she lamented, “I wish I could forget everything about her that makes my heart ache until this day, doctor. I have forgiven her — I believe I did — and even so, it hurts like that darn evening in the middle of the thunderstorm.”

“Forgiving does not necessarily mean forgetting,” the doctor reminded her.

“I know,” she sighed, eyes downcast in resignation.

A few moments later, Dr. Park-Bronson reached out to pat her shoulder and said, “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Jin Ah. You have come so far; in every sense of the word, you are healing.”

“Am I, really?”

“Yes. One step at a time, alright?”

Jin Ah closed her eyes and nodded in somber agreement.

“One step at a time,” she breathed out.

The golden afternoon sun had already set below the horizon when Jin Ah left the clinic. She was faring better according to her psychologist, so her counseling sessions were reduced to once every quarter.

For almost a year, the behavioral center in West Leederville was her destination every last Thursday of each month at 6:00 pm, and it was all because of Tanya who suggested that she seek professional help after the former witnessed an episode of her breaking down in the office at the onset of a typhoon.

Since sheets of rain were ceaselessly pouring from the heavens, Jin Ah’s stern boss insisted to drop her in front of her building — an act of kindness a newly-transferred employee from Sydney was more than grateful for.

“It seemed as if you were barely hanging on a thread back there,” Tanya frankly told her that night on the way home.

“I’m so sorry, Tanya,” was all Jin Ah could say in reparation to the inconvenience she had caused her supervisor.

“You don’t have to apologize, Jin Ah. I’m your line manager and I should be looking after you.”

“But still.”

Tanya deliberated for a bit before she asked, “Would you like to hear my thoughts, Miss Yoon?”

“Please,” Jin Ah acquiesced while vaguely staring at the blurry road ahead of them.

“Those who are scarred are always the last to know they are not okay,” the forty-three year old woman spoke in a dismal tone, and something told Jin Ah that the piece of wisdom Tanya was sharing was coming from a place of genuine concern — or from a time in the latter’s life that she was reluctant to revisit. “Have you tried talking to a psychologist about this?”

Jin Ah simply shook her head, then turned towards the window of the passenger seat to keep her face hidden lest the renewed surge of emotions incapacitated her again.

“There’s no stigma here… if that’s what pulls you back, Jin Ah,” Tanya guaranteed. “I can refer you to someone — and she was from South Korea, too. The shared heritage might make it easier for you to let those awful things that burden you out of your chest.”

***

Speaking of the wise woman who selflessly took Jin Ah under her wing.

“Hello, Tanya!” Jin Ah greeted the caller as soon as she swiped ‘answer’. “Kate and Jess are touching up on their makeup.”

 _And that’s going to be for how long?_ Tanya teased.

“A while.”

_Crikey! I should have come instead._

“I was kidding,” Jin Ah giggled. “We’ll be there in thirty.”

_Sounds good. See you, girls._

Traffic was not that bad considering that it was a Friday evening and their commute was well within the rush hours. Half-an-hour later, the three ladies were dropped off by the cab driver right outside the venue. With the cold, nocturnal breeze blowing, they hurried to cross the sidewalk before their teeth chattered like the sharp clacking of the heels of their boots against the concrete pavement.

“Oooh-la-la, my Jin Ah Yoon!” Hector hooted in approval the instant he laid eyes on her. “You look gorgeous, girlfriend.”

Jin Ah approached them and gave him and Tanya a hug, then said, “Glad I did not disappoint.”

“You look perfect,” Tanya mused with a smile before exchanging a meaningful glance with Hector.

Noticing that Jin Ah caught the split-second muted conversation, Kate tugged at Jin Ah’s arm and told her, “I think they’ve already started.”

There were twenty booths set up at the cellar — ten winemakers on each side of the wide aisle — ranging from Rosés to full-bodied reds. When they were given a signal to step in, the crowd dispersed to head towards their wine of preference. Most of the guests went straight to the lighter ones, whereas Tanya steered them to sample the Merlot.

After being served, Jin Ah gave her goblet a subtle swirl and took a whiff of the peppery notes of the medium-bodied wine in her hand. She then brought the rim of the glass to her lips and tipped it over a little to have a swig of the Merlot, consequently swishing the liquid around her mouth to permit the predominantly fruity aroma to tickle her taste buds. And when she was able to phrase the feedback she was about to scribble on the slip of paper in her grasp, she bent down to carefully spit on the bucket.

Just as she straightened up and was dabbing at the remnant wine with the back of her fingers, the shutter of a camera caught her attention.

“I’m so sorry!” she gasped. “Did I…”

Upon recognizing the person behind the lens, Jin Ah’s words vanished to obscurity, utterly thunderstruck by the realization of who was standing before her.

“Seo Jin…” she called his name out in a whisper.

***

_January 2020_

The soft rays of the morning sun that seeped through the sheer curtains of her bedroom were touching Jin Ah’s face, warming her up and causing her sleepy eyes to squint when she tried to open them. The alarm rang for the third time that hour and she knew that no matter how enticing the idea of staying under the sheets was, she had to get up.

That Monday, she did not have to go to work; she had to go to the airport and pick someone up.

Jin Ah was already by the gates a quarter before ten, waiting for a familiar face to stand out from the bustling crowd. For some reason, being there earlier than their arranged rendezvous made her more jittery than she anticipated.

Five minutes after the expected time of arrival of a certain plane from Incheon, a throng of passengers began to come out of the concealed corridor. It did not take too long for her to spot him: a tall, bespectacled man with a tapered cut, wearing a brown, long-sleeved shirt that was folded up to his elbows and a pair of light cream pants.

As if they were born to orbit each other, Goo Seo Jin met her gaze right away.

She wanted to bolt past the barricades so that she could enfold him in her welcoming arms and launch into hours of catching up because those messages and video chats never seemed to be enough, while on the contrary, a small fraction of her was also frightened that a year apart from each other somehow diminished his affections for her. It happened once and it was not impossible for history to repeat itself.

Nevertheless, she was able to come up with one thing to say.

“Hey,” she exhaled, a nervous smile breaking her glowing face.

“Hey,” Seo Jin uttered in response through the bedimpled grin that she sorely missed to behold in the flesh.

They spent the rest of the afternoon in her apartment sprawled on the mattress with their limbs entwined, lips swollen from kissing like teenagers who could not keep their hands off each other, or like star-crossed lovers who only wished to make up for lost time.

When they were not capturing each other’s mouths with tender brushes, they simply stared at each other, silently exchanging several months’ worth of words that spoke of yearning and love.

Somehow, Jin Ah found it amusing that after all those years of being together pre and post-breakup and those countless moments of intimacies in each other’s arms, she was still shy when she was alone with him.

“Are you okay?” Seo Jin asked her with contrived nonchalance, his darkened irises smoldering with wanting and mirth.

“Goo Seo Jin,” she warned him.

“What?”

“Having fun teasing me, mister?”

He shrugged, “Who wouldn’t? I mean, you look really cute when that coquettish flush is blooming on your cheeks.”

Pouting, she ran a palm down his face in mock retaliation, earning a hearty laughter from him in return. She chuckled at him regardless, and he drew her closer to lock her in a tight embrace.

That would have been sweet and fluffy if not for the accidental brushing of her bare stomach (Thanks to her cropped shirt hitching up to her ribcage at the sudden movement.) against his clothed crotch, the brief contact forcing him to stifle a groan.

With her hand resting on top of his chest, Jin Ah felt his heartbeat speed up beneath her fingertips, the pace nearly matching her frenzied pulse. His breath was becoming more ragged by the minute and out of the blue, the room grew a tad warmer even with the thermostat of the air conditioning unit down to twenty-one degrees.

It was her turn to throw the question back to his court then.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m good.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Never been better.”

“I missed you, Seo Jin.”

“You have no idea how much I missed you too, baby.”

With her lingering doubts dispelled, Jin Ah braved to lift her head and look directly into his eyes as she enquired, “Would you care to show me how much you missed me?”

Fortunately, genius as he was, Seo Jin did not have to be asked twice.

***

“Oh my god! What are you doing here?” the thrill in Jin Ah’s voice could no longer be contained as she threw herself in his arms, hands wounding around his neck and clinging for dear life.

Seo Jin crinkled his nose in sheer delight of holding her again, his senses satiated by her presence after several months of being a continent away from each other, then said, “It’s my girlfriend’s birthday tomorrow, silly. How can I not be here?”

“You told me you had a lot of things going on this week!”

“My team is the best, baby. The ship is going to stay afloat and sail smoothly even if I take a six-month leave.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful” — she abruptly tore herself away from him to stare at his face, her doe eyes wide in disbelief — “Hold on! Six-month leave?”

Lifting a finger up to scratch a vague spot on his temple, he answered with a coy smirk, “I might be crashing at your place for a while if that’s okay with you.”

“And the six-month countdown starts today?”

“Yes.”

Without further ado, Jin Ah laced her fingers with his — but not before sweeping a hasty glance around her to search for her companions who were watching giddily on the sidelines, much to her wonder. And when she saw Tanya coyly wink at her, she understood that it was highly likely that everyone was in on the surprise — the enablers!

Finally, she pulled him closer to her and bid him in a velvety whisper that singed every vein in his body, “Let’s get out of here, then.”

“Oh — and sir, please don’t forget to bring a bottle of Pinot Noir,” she added prior to turning on her heel to head towards the double-doors of the wine cellar in leisured, foxlike strides.

It was a long night — not that Jin Ah was complaining. At past three in the morning, they lay spent on the bed, lightly touching each other on nooks and corners reserved only for paramours even though it had been hours since they rode the vestigial waves of their most recent climax.

Seo Jin was hovering over her as she lounged on her back, his lips blindly latching on the crook of her neck and seemingly not minding the beads of sweat that covered every inch of her bare skin. He was gently sucking at her flesh, cautious not to taint her with bruises that would give away the intensity of their lovemaking.

Three steamy rounds of it to be specific.

The first time was against the door right after she closed it. Pinning her against the oak panel, he did a quick work of their garments and nibbled on the soft shell of her ear once he was through.

“Have I told you how beautiful you looked tonight?” Seo Jin breathed on that sensitive spot on her jugular. “That dress should have been illegal, baby. I almost had a cardiac arrest when I saw you walking with your cleavage on full display.”

Reduced to a molten puddle of lust, Jin Ah merely hummed in response, helplessly panting as he rolled a taut peak of her breasts between his fingers. When he pinched it, a soft moan escaped her throat.

“Then again, the sight was worth the heart attack, wasn’t it?” she meekly countered, breathless.

That was all the encouragement he needed before hoisting one of her legs up on his hips to grind the proof of his vehement arousal against the aching apex of her thighs, eventually sheathing himself inside her drenched and throbbing core that gladly welcomed him home.

“You are always worth it, Jin Ah,” he grunted through labored exhales. “Always.”

The second was in the shower after dinner and half-a-bottle of Pinot Noir, taking turns in mutually pleasuring each other prior to engaging in the sexual act itself. Their fleeting interludes were in the form of wet kisses, tongues reacquainting themselves and fusing their musky essences in the most primal manner.

And the instant Jin Ah felt her knees buckle from the unforgiving tremors of her rapture, Seo Jin grabbed her by the waist and crushed her flush against his likewise trembling body to prevent her from slipping on the pristine, marble tiles of the bathroom.

The third was on the queen-sized mattress of her bedroom — white sheets ruffled and pillows scattered on the carpeted floor, long-forgotten. She straddled him as he adulated her bosoms with the carnal grazing of his mouth, the swirl of the agile organ inside it stirring the extinguished flame in her loins back to life. They were holding each other as if tomorrow was an abstract that was never guaranteed, hands mapping their lover’s skin with blistering caresses — marking, memorizing… passions manifesting in the feverish moments that made time stand still.

Yet, no matter how decadent those amorous preludes were, the slow burn started to choke her in due course so much so that she basically had to beg him for that euphoric release.

Always submitting to her bidding, he guided her to lay on her stomach before he propped himself on all fours above her, their fingers weaving through each other to fill the empty gaps in between.

The three years of separation seemed insignificant to Seo Jin, especially if the reward for his patience was to embrace her in the most intimate way possible and knowing for certain that no other man shall ever be as close to heaven as he was every time he made sweet love to her.

“I love you, baby,” he panted as he relentlessly ravished her, pulse racing to the tune of the erratic convulsion of her womb. “I love you so damn much.”

In the midst of the storm of sin raging inside her, Jin Ah tilted her head to the side in search of his lips, desperately seeking for a sliver of salvation which she indeed found in his kiss.

A gratified cry from the pit of her belly echoed in the room when he penetrated the depths of her abyss in one excruciatingly searing stroke that only left a devastating, blazing trail of craving as he retreated, transforming her into a woman with so much hunger, so much thirst…

With her mouth parting in reflex to catch a lungful of air, she told him, “I love you. I… I love you, Goo Seo Jin.”

The throes of their shared lascivious desire were almost at the pinnacle, albeit the stiffening of her body once again hinted at her hesitation. Fully aware of the reason behind the adverse reaction of his partner, he peppered feather-light kisses on her temples and her cheeks while murmuring how much he cherished her, how much he needed her, how much he loved her…

And when she finally believed that he truly did, she yielded to him, more than willingly accepting his ruthless thrusts with the unremitting grip of her pulsing heat.

“Seo Jin, please…”

To ensure that they would be jumping into that ravaging, yet deliciously fulfilling freefall together, he slid a palm underneath her to fondle one supple breast and toy with its pebbling nipple with the pad of his index finger.

“It’s me, Jin Ah. It’s okay,” he grumbled softly in her ear. “Let go, baby.”

Without warning, she caved in to the inevitable with a hushed whimper, and the aftermath of her bliss promptly drove him to his own turbulent undoing.

“Jin Ah?”

Seo Jin’s raspy voice dragged Jin Ah out of her rather licentious reverie.

“Yeah?”

“What are you thinking?”

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“Psh…” she rolled her eyes at him. “You asked.”

He brought a finger to her cheeks and said, “You’re blushing.”

“No, I’m not,” she firmly denied, although her arms automatically formed a makeshift barricade to conceal her face. “That’s just an afterglow.”

“Afterglow it is,” he acquiesced in an effort to humor her. “Come on, birthday girl. Bath time.”

She groaned and reminded him in case he forgot the time difference, “Baby, it’s three thirty in the morning.”

“I know,” he was on his knees before she could draw him back to her, inserting his arms between her slender form and the mattress to pick her up bridal-style. “But there’s somewhere I’d like to go.”

“It’s too early,” she protested, a frown forming on her previously radiant features. “What in the world are you planning to do at dawn, Goo Seo Jin?”

In spite of her objections, he lifted her from the twisted sheets and nudged the tip of her nose with his, then proposed, “We’re going to chase the sunrise.”

They commenced the long stroll to Matilda Bay at four. Bundled up in the matching prussian blue jackets Seo Jin purchased for them online as a Christmas gift, they walked arm-in-arm underneath the vast canvas of lilac and navy with glaring streaks of magenta. And when a gust of a chilly, early morning autumn wind surged past them, Jin Ah could not help nestling herself in his natural warmth.

Upon reaching the dock leading to the famed boathouse, he clung onto her arm to halt her in her tracks, then pulled her against him in a comforting back hug. Instinctively, she leaned back and rested her head on his chest — right where the incessant beating of his heart was heard loud and clear.

“So you’re telling me that I get to have this every waking day for six months?” she asked as she allowed the scent of peppermint to fill her mind.

He nodded and replied, “Yes — and longer, if you wished.”

“Can you go on an extended vacation?”

“I could.”

“What’s the catch, though?”

“You have to say ‘yes’.”

“‘Yes’ to what, CEO Goo?”

She heard him inhale deeply, and for a minute, she was under the impression that he was simply catching on his breath after that lengthy journey from her house to the bay.

Ultimately, he answered, “To a lifetime with me, Yoon Jin Ah.”

She could not believe her ears, thus she spun in the confines of his arms to look at him squarely.

“What lifetime?” she asked despite knowing exactly what he was talking about.

Carefully, he released her only to lift a clenched hand between them, fingers unfolding one by one to unravel the birthday present he was bearing.

“Happy birthday, baby.”

To others, it was an exquisite engagement ring — a striking jewelry made of a thin band of white gold and a drop of luminous diamond perched on top of it that signified a woman’s agreement towards marriage. For Seo Jin, however, it was a symbol of a whirlwind romance with his college sweetheart, of the doubts that stood between them, of the words that irrevocably wedged a sword in their already tumultuous relationship, and of the years of painful longing and bitter regrets.

At the same time, it was a token reminiscent of their missed opportunities and bad timings, of the endless chase, of the stolen glances and second guesses, and of another elusive shot at a happy ending.

Something a battered, yet thriving soul like Jin Ah very much deserved.

In a heartbeat, he reached for her left hand and gazed down at her tearful eyes, wordlessly seeking for her consent to slide the bejeweled ring on her finger.

“Marry me, Yoon Jin Ah,” Seo Jin asked, a slight tremble marring his usually smooth baritone. “Please take this second strike of lightning with me.”

After pursing her quivering lips together in a tight line for a while, Jin Ah nodded as she swallowed the lump that was constricting her throat and said, “Yes, Goo Seo Jin. Yes… Yes, I am ready for a second strike of lightning with you.”

That evening, right before they tucked themselves to sleep, Yoon Jin Ah retrieved a narrow strip of pastel-colored paper from her stack of stationary and folded it in the only way she knew how, then dropped it in a big, crystal jar brimming with lucky paper stars.

And inside that old-fashioned charm was a short, handwritten note that chronicled her thirty-sixth birthday.

_Today, I learned that, by some miracle or trick of fate, lightning does strike the same place twice._

**Author's Note:**

> This is a BinJin crossover AU featuring Goo Seo Jin (Hyde, Jekyll, and Me) and Yoon Jin Ah (Something in the Rain).


End file.
